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/Trail's l/i©(opy ; 


<& Safe 

OF THE COVENANTERS. 



BY 

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GRACE STEBBING, 

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AUTHOR OF 

<C A REAL HERO — GOLD OR GLORY?” i€ SICVERDALE RECTORY,” “ ONLY A TRAMP ,’ * 


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CONTENTS. 


CHAP. PAGE 

I. ONE OF THE FEW WHO WERE KILLED • . 9 

II. THE TWO COVENANTS 23 

III. WHO BEGAN IT? 3 ° 

IV. IVIE MCCALL 44 

V. A REMINDER FOR CHARLES II 53 

VI. A TRAITOR IN THE HEART OF THE CAMP . . 59 

VII. “MINISTER OF THE GOSPEL AT STIRLING” . 71 

VIII. DARK TIMES 8l 

IX. A MYSTERIOUS VISITOR 87 

X. A VENICE FLASK OF PERFUME .... 98 

XI. THE NEW BISHOP OF DUNBLANE . . . II4 

XII. A PAIR OF FRIENDS I29 

XIII. WILLIAM BLAIR OFFERS A CHOICE . . . 136 

XIV. TASTING SORROW FOR THE CAUSE . . . I42 

XV. u WITH WORSE TO FOLLOW” . . . .159 

XVI. A LATE VISITOR 1 7 ° 

XVII. CALM BEFORE THE STORM 1 84 

XVIII. A CONVENTICLE DISTURBED . . . . l88 

XIX. HOW MCCALL DID THE DRAGOONS’ BIDDING . 198 

XX. HENRY SAVILE TO THE RESCUE .... 20S 

XXL IN THE BLAIRS’ KITCHEN 2l6 


Contents 


vm 


CHAP. 

XXII. 

ROUSED AT LAST . . . 

• 

• 

• 

PAGE 

231 

XXIII. 

TURNING THE TABLES . • 

• 

• 

236 

XXIV. 

GENERAL THOMAS DALZIEL 

• 

• 

246 

XXV. 

MARY BLAIR LEAVES TOO SOON 

• 

9 

252 

XXVI. 

ALAS ! .<<«•• 

• 

• 

265 

XXVII. 

LEARNING THE NEWS 

• 

• 

278 

XXVIII. 

IVIE MCCALL BEFORE THE JUDGES . 

• 

• 

286 

XXIX. 

OLD ELSPETH’S PRISONER 

• 

• 

294 

XXX. 

NOT A ROMAN MATRON, BUT A CHRISTIAN 

• 

307 

XXXI. 

KING CHARLES’S MOOD . 

• 

• 

314 

XXXII. 

“BUT BY STEALTH, FOR FEAR” 

• 

• 

320 

XXXIII. 

THE BEST OF THE CHEESE INSIDE . 

• 

• 

323 

XXXIV. 

ELSPETH SPENCE SPEAKS HER MIND 

• 

334 

XXXV. 

THREE TAPS AT THE DOOR 

• 

• 

344 

XXXVI. 

NOT THE MIND OF CHRIST 

• 

• 

363 

XXXVII. 

XXXVIII. 

“ BECAUSE YE HAVE BETRAYED THE 
AS JUDAS” 

“THE CAMERONIANS ” 

CHURCH, 

• • 

• • 

370 

373 





GRAHAM MCCALL’S VICTORY. 


CHAPTER I. 

ONE OF THE FEW WHO WERE KILLED. 

DREARY, marshy spot, a few miles from 
Lochgarry. The time, night ; and a man 
stretched on the chill, damp ground, dying 
of his wounds. The year — 1653. 

A few hours ago an engagement had been fought 
on the banks of the loch, between a detachment of 
Cromwell’s army under Generals Monk and Morgan 
on the one side, and Middleton and Glencairn, fighting 
for the exile son of the beheaded King, on the other. 
And the Protector’s forces gained the day. 

“ General Morgan pressed so hard that the King’s 
army ran as fast as they could, and in great confusion. 
Put there was no great slaughter, as night came on 
soon after they were engaged.” 

The historian gives us that small off-hand bit of 




10 


Graham Ale Call's Victory . 


information as to there being no great slaughter. Of 
course he could not stop to make a moan over the 
dozen or so men who happened to be of those few 
who had been slain. The widows and orphans must 
do that in the desolated homes, where things were no 
less sad because they happened to be the only ones 
picked out to endure this bitter misery. 

However, at that midnight hour none of the bereaved 
had as yet had time to learn of the encounter that had 
taken place, much less to glean any of the attendant 
particulars. Graham McCall lay dying out on that 
marshy moor, and his sweet-voiced, gentle young 
wife, Kate, lay sleeping peacefully with their little 
child, Ivie, in her arms ; never even in her dreams 
imagining what was befalling her husband, nor that 
the place she had been fain to fill beside him, at that 
solemn hour, was occupied by a rough soldier, not 
even a fellow-countryman. 

Graham McCall had joined Lord Glencairn’s 
standard because he was earnest to fulfil what he 
regarded as his bounden religious duty, to fight for his 
covenanted King. But the army of Charles was com- 
posed of very diverse elements. A cons : derable num- 
ber of the Scotchmen in it were actuated simply by 
loyalty to the grandson of their King, James the Sixth; 
some by dislike to Cromwell ; others again were there 
from the noble and unselfish motives that influenced 
McCall ; and the men who had recently come over 
from the Continent under Middleton, himself a soldier 
of fortune from the Thirty Years’ War, were for t|ie 


One of the Few who were Killed. 1 1 

most part Englishmen fighting for English Royalty, 
and for the gaiety, liberality, and brilliancy that they 
promised themselves should be attendant on a future 
English Court. 

The two companion fugitives from the luckless 
affray at Lochgarry were representatives of the 
extremes in the Royalist army. Graham McCall, with 
his strong religious convictions, and the blameless life 
with which he adorned his profession as a follower 
of his Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. The other, a 
young cousin of Middleton’s, scarcely more than a 
boy, but a very giant for size and strength, and 
already, unhappily, as much given to drinking and 
swearing as any of his comrades on his side of the 
camp. 

He thought to prove his manliness and good com- 
radeship by his aptness as a pupil in these sins, but 
he would have been a really fine fellow, and one of 
those marked out to leave a famous name behind 
him, if he had not thus cruelly blighted his own life. 
An expression of the most true and honest sympathy 
rested on his countenance now as he bent low over 
the dying laird, trying to discover by the moon’s 
misty light whether he were still conscious. 

“Savilc?” came the low breathing of his own 
name by way of answer to the scrutiny. 

“ Mais oui done,” was the reply in a quick tone of 
relief. And then, with as quick correction of himself : 
“Your pardon. I have been so long over yonder 
jabbering French that I have well-nigh lost the 


12 


Graham McCall's V ictory. 


proper aptitude of my own tongue, it seems. You 
are feeling better, I trust ? You will yet pull 
through, I hope, and be soon nursed back to strength 
by that wife and youngster Ivie you are so fond 
of speaking of.” 

A momentary gleam of returning brightness came 
into the large, dim blue eyes, as accompaniment to 
the words : “ Nay, my friend, I am dying. I am 
going to the everlasting home, where One awaits me 
who is even dearer than my dear wife and child.” 

The failing of the voice, and increased pallor, told 
the young soldier all too plainly that his passing hope 
was indeed a vain one, but, with the instinctive 
craving to prolong life, he pulled a most fantastic- 
looking but beautiful glass flask from his pocket, 
and taking out the engraved and twisted stopper 
he put it to the chill white lips, whilst a subtle 
fragrance filled the whole air around. 

The contents certainly appeared to possess some 
potent charm, for the mouth of the flask had scarcely 
touched the dying man’s lips before he revived wonder- 
fully, and his appearance might have deceived even 
those far more experienced than Henry Savile into 
hopes for his recovery. But it did not deceive 
himself. 

“ Hope for this world is over for me,” he said 
tranquilly, “ and I am content to die. My present 
rally I believe is due as much to that wonderful 
aroma as to what I have tasted ; the scent seems to 
penetrate me as it has done the air.” 


One of the Few who were Killed. 


x 3 


The young officer smiled with a touch of pride 
in his possession, as he lifted it high for its sheeny 
hues to catch the pale light of the moonbeams. 
“I have travelled somewhat,” he said. “This was 
given to me by a strange old sage last year, in 
Florence. I gave him a pull out of the midst of a 
rabble mob one day, and in return he bestowed 
this boon on me, saying that it was of a potency 
almost to bring the dead to life again.” 

Graham McCall closed his eyes for a moment, and 
then, half-raising his feeble right hand, he repeated 
with an impressive slowness : 

“ ‘Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection and the 
life : he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, 
yet shall he live.’ That is the Christian’s cordial, 
my friend, and it hath in it this of unspeakable and 
precious gloriousness, that it is bestowed upon us 
with no assurance of being ‘ almost ’ a gift to bring 
us life, but a certainty : ‘ He that believeth in Me, 
though he were dead, yet shall he live.’ Not ‘per- 
haps,’ not ‘ almost ’ — he ‘ shall.’ ” 

The young giant shrugged his broad shoulders 
with something of the foreign air he had acquired in 
foreign parts. His customary off-hand reckle. sness 
was returning now that the immediate cause for 
anxiety was fading at any rate from his superficial 
view. 

“ It passes me to understand,” he said, in' a tone of 
mingled pity and contempt ; “ it utterly passes me to 
understand how you can keep to this child’s faith of 


H 


Graham McCall's Victory . 


yours now, when you see everything that you have 
valued and striven for trampled underfoot or de- 
stroyed. Cromwell’s uncovenanted soldiers oust your 
favourite ministers from their pulpits, in order to 
mount thither themselves, pistols in their hands and 
swords by their sides. Is it not so ? ’ 

“ It is even so,” was the quiet assent. 

Henry Savile continued : “ And then for your 
General Assembly. See what happened to that but 
last July. It had but just met when Colonel Cot- 
terel beset the church, wherein the members were 
gathered, with some rattes of musketeers and a 
troop of horse. Himself entered the church after 
your Moderator had made his prayer, required au- 
dience, and inquired whether the meeting sat there 
by authority of the Parliament of the Commonwealth 
of England, or of the Commander-in-Chief of the 
English forces, or of the English Judges in Scotland. 
And when the Moderator replied that there was no 
question there of anything of that sort, that it was an 
ecclesiastical synod, a spiritual court of Jesus Christ, 
the Colonel said he had orders to dissolve it, and 
unless all the members instantly followed him they 
should be dragged out of the building.” 

The young soldier paused a moment to utter a 
scornful laugh, as he said : “ Ha, ha ! I just fancy I see 
them. Cotterel did it well while he was about it. He 
led all the solemn-faced individuals composing your 
wind-up General Assembly through the whole streets 
of Edinburgh and a mile beyond, with the troops 


One of the Few who were Killed, 1 5 


guarding them all about ; and then, calling a halt at 
last, he told them that they were never to dare to 
meet again more than three together, and the next 
morning the whole of them were trumpeted out of 
the town. What do you say to that ? Do you still 
tell me that you have this surpassing trust in infinite 
power and infinite love ? ” 

The dying laird looked up with wondering pity 
at his questioner. “ For all these afflictions our hearts 
are sad, our eyes run down with water. We sigh 
to God, against whom we have sinned, and we wait 
for the help of His hand.” 

Savile flung back his head with something of indig- 
nation as well as impatience. “ Wait, indeed,” he 
retorted ; “ you, for one, have had enough of waiting, 
it should appear. You have been faithful to your 
vow, faithful to your covenant, faithful to your 
covenanted King, faithful to your God, and what has 
your faithfulness brought you to ! Deep and bitter 
disappointment for your country, your covenant, your 
King, and death for yourself, with a girl-wife and 
infant son to await what may befall them. Pray, 
what have you to wait for more ? ” 

A sweet, calm smile rested upon the pale face. 
“What have I to wait for more!” he echoed. “You 
scarce ask as those ask who wish to know, yet will 
I nevertheless tell thee. For myself, I have but 
a short waiting until I pass onwards to the everlasting 
home, and joy unspeakable. And for the rest, our 
eyes wait upon the Lord our God, until that He have 


i6 


Graham McCall's Victory . 


mercy upon us. For since the beginning of the world 
men have not heard nor perceived by the ear, neither 
hath the eye seen, O God, beside Thee, what He hath 
prepared for him that waiteth for Him.” 

So sublime in its expression had the countenance 
of the wounded man become, whilst he was repeating 
this most glorious and comfortable of all possible 
confessions of faith, that the scoffing sceptic beside 
him was awed into a passing reverence. 

“No amount of discouragement or adversity seems 
to quell the spirit and hope of you covenanters,” he 
murmured in bewilderment, rather to himself than 
aloud ; but the other caught the words, and answered 
them : 

“How should it!” he ejaculated with the won- 
derful expression of peace deepening on his face. 
“ One thousand shall flee at the rebuke of one ; at the 
rebuke of five shall ye flee : till ye be left as a beacon 
upon the top of a mountain, and as an ensign on an 
hill. And therefore will the Lord wait, that He may 
be gracious unto you, and therefore will He be exalted 
that He may have mercy upon you : for the Lord is 
a God of judgment, blessed are all they that wait for 
Him ! We have had the chastisement for our sins, 
according to the sure word of the Lord, who chasteneth 
every son whom He receiveth, and now we wait upon 
Him in the certain hope that we shall be partakers of 
His infinite loving mercy.” 

Henry Savile slowly shook his head. The whole 
matter was a mystery too deep for his powers to sound- 


One of the Few who were Killed. 17 


“You Scotch are a dauntless race,” he said, after 
a short musing fit. “ Here you lie, with a dozen 
wounds about you, racked with pain, utterly comfort- 
less, with not a creature to do a hand’s turn for you 
but a rough, unready soldier, your wife and child far 
away and helpless, and yet — and yet — ” 

He stopped, but a questioning look in those deep, 
dark eyes, seemed to compel him to continue what 
was in his mind to say : 

“ And yet you speak with a look on your face 
and a ring in your voice through all its feebleness, 
as though, instead of being a vanquished member 
of a vanquished cause, you were a triumphant con- 
queror.” 

" Even so,” came the reply, in tones of startling 
force and energy, as though that last word had been 
endowed for him with an especial element of inspiring 
strength. “ Even so, my brother. * As it is written. 
For thy sake we are killed all the day long ; we are 
accounted as sheep for the slaughter ; but, In all 
these things we are more than conquerors through 
Him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither 
death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor 
powers, nor things present, nor things to comfe, nor 
height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be 
able to separate us from the love of God, which is in 
Christ Jesus our Lord.’ Times of persecution there 
were in the world, when the Apostle of the Lord said 
that, and for all ages he has given these words into 

the mouths of those who fight under the banner of 

B 


i8 


Graham McCall's Victory. 


King Jesus, against the world, the flesh, and the 
devil.” 

Whether Henry Savile would have attempted any 
further answer to this speech must remain uncertain 
for, as it was concluded, the Covenanter, in the forget- 
fulness of his fervour, tuimed upon his most badly- 
wounded side, and brought on a recurrence of the 
former spasms of acute agony, which for a while 
rendered him dumb with pain. 

By every means in his power Savile sought to 
assuage his companion’s sufferings, far too mercifully 
intent upon that occupation to have further thought 
for discussion. He was young — not yet twenty — and 
therefore not yet hardened in the cruel circumstances 
that wait upon war. More than once, it is true, he 
had seen men stricken down dead beside him. 
But the wild tumult had raged on, and there was no 
more opportunity than there was desire to dwell 
upon the dismal events. But now it was widely 
different. Out on that lonely moor in the dead of 
night to be watching, those two alone, and one of 
them dying, partly through a generous effort to screen 
his friend! Henry Savile felt oppressed with un- 
speakable sadness. It was of his distinct choice that 
he had remained with McCall, to whom he had 
become greatly attached, during the past few weeks 
of camp companionship. The better nature that was 
somewhere hidden in the young officer had been 
attracted by the sterling worth and strict integrity of 
the single-minded Covenanter, and in spite of wide 


One of the Few who were Killed . 


*9 


diversity of disposition and of pursuits they had bid 
fair to become fast friends, so far as the circumstances 
of their relative positions rendered possible. 

It would have seemed to mortal minds that, if but 
to permit a thing of such inestimable value to this 
soldier, God might have preserved the life of McCall 
at the present juncture. But His ways are not as 
our ways, and He works in manners that men do not 
fathom, until the grand end lies open to their view. 

Morgan’s attack upon Middleton’s forces had been 
so sudden and unprepared for that the rout had been 
almost equally sudden, and also so complete that the 
retreat had immediately become a simple case of 
Sauve qui pent. It soon became evident to the 
little company who were hurrying to find shelter 
from possible pursuit, in the direction indicated by 
Graham McCall, that their guide could not himself 
accompany them to the desired goal. 

“ At any rate not until you have had some hours’ 
rest,” said one, little thinking how serious were the 
injuries he had sustained. 

Even the laird himself was not as yet fully con- 
scious of their vital nature, and when Savile insisted 
on allowing the others to continue their way without 
him, that he might remain with the exhausted laggard, 
McCall said cheerfully : 

“ You are truly a friend in need, my brother. But 
never mind, you shall soon catch them up. You shall 
not have to linger long on my account.” 

Neither did he. But it was not till some minutes 


20 Graham McCall's Victory. 

after the pair had come to this halt, in their rapid 
march, that either of them learnt what was to be 
the probable event that should set the watcher 
free. 

“ If only my poor follower,' William Blair, had not 
lost me in the m&tiel' said the laird, in an interval of 
those final spasms of pain, “ there would have been 
no need, even on the score of your kind humanity, 
for you to stay by me, and be thus distressed by your 
sympathy with my sufferings. I am so grieved for 
you, my brother.” 

The young officer was kneeling by his side, sup- 
porting his head as he so spoke, and now, bending his 
face low over him, he said huskily : 

4< If you are grieved for me, I am thankful for 
myself. I should have jealously grudged you 
during these last few hours that I still have you, to 
William Blair. I would give up the tendance of you, 
for your own sake, to your wife, were she here, or to 
my old foster-mother, Elspeth Spence, for she is 
clever though she is crabbed. But I would not 
resign my charge to any other man alive.” 

A grateful smile lighted up the death-pale counten- 
ance. Another moment, and it grew brilliant as the 
moonlight that had just succeeded in chasing away 
the mist, and flooded all the landscape. Some force 
returned to his hand, and clasping his friend’s with it 
he exclaimed eagerly, joyfully : 

“ You spoke awhile since of my appearing to be a 
triumphant conqueror, and I told you that such in 


One of the Fezv who were Killed \ 21 


truth I am. But even now it is borne in upon me 
that in yet other ways, while I lie here, vanquished 
by the arm of flesh, the Lord whom I serve hath 
given me the victory. I die for the cause of the 
Covenant, and those ends for which the Covenant 
was framed I trust in the Lord shall yet be estab- 
lished in the land. But there is another thing lying 
close at my heart at this moment, my brother.” 

Savile bent his ear close to the failing voice, and 
it went on : “ For my sake, and for the memory of 
these solemn hours, you will befriend all Covenanters 
whensoever it lieth in thy power. I ask no promise ; 
I know it. And yet, finally, my Father will give me 
this glorious victory — the victory over the spirit of evil 
in thine heart. You have seen how a Christian dies 
who hath entered into a sure covenant with his God 
When you lie waking on your bed, or on the battle- 
field, this fair night shall come back to your memory, 
and the Lord shall grant you to me for a radiant star 
in my crown of life. 

“ You shall be content then, and I, with Graham 
McCall’s victory.” 





CHAPTER II. 

THE TWO COVENANTS. 

ETWEEN the death of Graham McCall, at 
the close of the fruitless Glencairn Expe- 
dition, and the triumphant accession of 
Charles II. to the throne of his fathers, a 
period of seven years passed away, during which 
either Scotland or the Covenant could scarcely be 
said to have any history at all. 

It was the Protector’s policy to repress anything 
especially national, that he might the more easily 
govern the two countries as one people ; and as the 
Covenanters were themselves split up into two 
strongly antagonistic parties — one for the exiled 
Charles, one greatly against him— they unconsciously 
helped to further Cromwell’s management of them 
and of their countrymen. 

Seeing, then, that we must anyhow wait a while to 
get up to the real starting-point of our tale, in the 
year 1660, when Scotland is in a state of almost 
uproarious rejoicing over the recovered King, and 
when Graham McCall’s son, I vie, is just ten years 
old, I will fill up the interval rapidly by cop) ing 




The Two Covenants . 


*3 


out for your benefit the innumerable dates when 
the two Covenants were formally signed. 

The first of them is called “ The National Covenant, 
or Confession of Faith.” This was entered into with 
a special view to confirming the country in the 
Reformed Religion. The second is called “ The 
Solemn League and Covenant,” and this one was 
drawn up, as its own framers explain, “ for bringing 
the kingdoms to a more near conjunction and union, 
and as the most powerful means, by the blessing of 
God, for settling and preserving the true Protestant 
religion with perfect peace in His Majesty’s dominions, 
and propagating the same to other nations, and for 
establishing His Majesty’s throne to all ages and 
generations.” 

And now for a heap of dates — you can skip them, 
of course, if you like ; perhaps you had better. But 
just letting your eyes rest for a moment on them, 
while you turn the page, will give you a better idea 
of the persistency, the determination, the untiring 
devotion, the faithfulness of the Covenanters to their 
Covenants, than any amount of talk or tales could do. 
And yet more, I must add that without this ground- 
work idea, put firmly into your heads by the simple 
means of this picture of dates, I do not think I 
should do half justice either to you or to myself. 

I copy for you from a venerable old Scotch volume, 
the contents of which I believe I know better now 
than do half the Scotch folks themselves. It contains 
both the Covenants, and a multitude of declarations, 


24 


Graham McCall's Victory. 


orders, and all the rest of it, pertaining thereto. 
Both the Catechisms with the Scripture proofs, “ The 
Confession of Faith,” “The Form of Presbyterial 
Church Government,” and much more. The following 
are the dates of the National Covenant : 

“Subscribed at first by the King’s Majesty, and his 
Household, in the year 1580; thereafter by persons 
of all ranks in the year 1581, by ordinance of the 
Lords of Secret Council, and acts of the General 
Assembly ; subscribed again by all sorts of persons 
in the year 1590, by a new ordinance of Council, at 
the desire of the General Assembly ; with a general 
bond for the maintaining of the true Christian religion, 
and the King’s person ; and, together with a resolution 
and promise, for the causes after expressed, to main- 
tain the true religion, and the King’s Majesty, according 
to the foresaid Confession and Acts of Parliament, 
subscribed by Barons, Nobles, Gentlemen, Burgesses, 
Ministers, and Commons, in the year 1638 : approven 
by the General Assembly 1638 and 1639 i and sub- 
scribed again by persons of all ranks and qualities, in 
the year 1639, by an ordinance of Council, upon the 
supplication of the General Assembly, and act of the 
General Assembly, ratified by an Act of Parliament 
1640; and subscribed by King Charles II. at Spey, 
June 23, 1650, and Scoon, January 1, 1651.” 

So much for the first Covenant, the renewal of 

which was sometimes attended with great excitement 

and marvellous enthusiasm. In 1638 and ’39 people 

of every rank and age crowded to its signing, till it 

might well seem as though there were none bearing 

& 


The Two Covenants . 




the name of Scot whose personal name was not 
inscribed on the Covenant Roll. 

Those days were well likened to the days when the 
Jews “gathered themselves together as one man : . . . 
and they spake unto Ezra the scribe to bring the 
book of the law of Moses, which the Lord had com- 
manded to Israel. . . . And Ezra opened the book in 
the sight of all the people . . . And Ezra blessed the 
Lord, the great God. . . . And Nehemiah, and Ezra 
the priest, and the Levites . . . said unto all the 
people. . . . This day is holy unto the Lord your 
God : Mourn not, nor weep. For all the people 
wept when they heard the words of the law. Then 
he said unto them, Go your way, ... for this day is 
holy unto our Lord : neither be ye sorry ; for the 
joy of the Lord is your strength. . . . And all the 
people went their way : and there was very great 
gladness.” * 

The 1640 signing has a sorrowful interest for the 
English, seeing that the Covenant was ratified then 
by Act of Parliament, as a concession of poor Charles 
the First, by which he tried thus late in the day to 
secure his Scotch subjects as aids against those who 
were rebellious in the South. 

The dates of signing of the second Covenant, called 
“ The Solemn League and Covenant,” are — 1st, August 
17th, 1643, when it was approved by the General 
Assembly of the Church of Scotland, and by both 

* These verses exactly describe the Scotch upon the renewal 
of their Covenants with God. 


26 


Graham McCall's Victory . 


Houses of Parliament and Assembly of Divines in 
England. Ratified by Act of Parliament of Scotland, 
1644; and again renewed in Scotland, with an ac- 
knowledgment of sins, and engagement to duties, by 
all ranks, 1648, and by Parliament, 1649 J a °d taken 
and subscribed by King Charles II. at Spey, June 
23rd, 1650; and at Scoon, January 1st, 1651, when 
he subscribed the other. 

After all these signings came more “ Declarations,” 
“ Resolutions,” “ Remonstrances,” and then the famous 
Sanquhar Declaration, 1680, drawn up by Cameron, 
one of the sternest and strictest of all the stern old 
Covenanters. But of this, and of its proclamation, and 
affixing to the market-cross in the town of Sanquhar 
on the 8th of November, 1684, there will be further 
notice in the course of the tale. 

One word more. Of course, whether you trouble to 
read through the above dates or no, you will remem- 
ber that, from the very first date I have given you, 
to the last one, and beyond it, the years were strewn 
thick with troubles, tumults, turmoils, struggles, and 
recriminations, and were bathed, well nigh to Scotland’s 
drowning depth, in blood. 

And so, having allowed Ivie a short space of time 
in which to grow old enough to learn to read and 
write, and have a reasonable opinion of his own, let 
us lay down the old Scotch book, and continue our 
tale, just at that especial time when Covenanted 
Scotland did, at last, rejoice to welcome back to his 
ancestral throne the Covenanted King for whose 


The Two Covenants. 


27 


cause Graham McCall had so tranquilly resigned his 
life. 

“ Look out for the bonfire to-morrow afternoon, 
Mother Spence,” said a handsome giant of a fellow, 
the handsomeness of his attire well in keeping with 
himself, but in as great a contrast as it was possible 
for anything to be with the gaunt, slatternly old 
woman with whom he was good-humouredly chatting, 
and with the squalid, untidy hut which she shared 
with a numerous family of chickens. 

One of the smallest of these fledgings was of an 
obstreperous disposition, and drawing the attention 
of its owner towards the interior of her dwelling 
her companion’s eyes followed her : 

“ By my faith,” he exclaimed with a laugh more of 
amusement than disgust — “ By my faith, good Mother 
Spence, it is ever a mystery to me, greater than that 
of the philosopher’s stone, how you Scotch folks 
contrive to live in these dreadful hovels of yours.” 

She rewarded the remark with a grim chuckle. 
“Try one o’ them yoursel’, one day, and see, Maister 
Savile,” she said with a peculiar glint at him as she 
spoke, out between her contracted eyelids. “ More 
by token ye suld do sae, for ye’re nane but a Scots- 
man yoursel’, as I tak’ it. Ye were born upo’ Scots 
ground, and I that am a Scotswoman nursed ye. 
Whate’er ye may conseeder yoursel’ I aye ca’ ye 
Scotch, so there.” 

“ I know that,” was the answer, with a second good- 
humoured laugh. “ And so, of course, according to 


28 


Graham McCall's Victory. 


you, a man born in a stable is a horse, and a child 
fed upon cow’s milk is a calf. Well, well, you are 
perfectly welcome to call me and consider me what 
you choose, but my parents prefer to think me 
English. For my part both countries had a share 
of my goodwill, even before I fell in with as noble 
a fellow as ever lived, who called himself your 
countryman.” 

“ Aye, aye, I know,” replied the old woman with a 
nod. “Ye wad be meaning him ye telled me of before. 
Yon true Covenanter, Graham McCall. Varry sair 
and angered was my brither- in-law, William Blair, 
that ye should ha’ been wi’s laird in the deeing hoor, 
’stead o’ himsel’.” 

“ It may be as well some day for him that I was,” 
was the unconsciously prophetic answer ; and then, 
with a second bidding that his foster-mother should 
be sure to look out for the ruddy glow of the 
bonfire, to be lighted in the courtyard of Ilolyrood 
Palace, Elspeth Spence’s grand foster-son called his 
dog Wallace away from his favourite study of the 
chickens within the hut, untethered his horse, mounted 
and rode thoughtfully back to the city. 

Even at that hour, when Covenanters were for- 
getting the usual gravity and dignity of their outward 
demeanour in gladness of heart that they had re- 
gained a king who was doubly pledged to the 
Covenant, this cousin of Middleton’s looked forward 
dubiously to their future, and muttered beneath his 
mustache : 


The Tzvo Covenants. 


29 


“ Humph ! poor fools. Have they never heard the 
housewife’s proverb — ‘ Promises and piecrust are 
made to be broken ’ ? ” 

Whether with some half-formed idea of beginning 
the good offices at once, which he felt sure would be 
needed, he did not clearly understand, himself, but at 
this point in his meditations he rode back to the old 
woman, and left the dog in charge with her, as a gift 
for her brother-in-law. 

“ It’s but a pup, at present,” he said ; “ but I think 
it is sensible.” 



CHAPTER III. 

WHO BEGAN IT ? 

E bright sun of an evening in early 
summer was playing through the green 
foliage of the birch trees, and giving 
added richness of colour to the fir tree 
trunks, when a pedestrian reached the door of a little 
moorland shieling. 

Standing there, and looking around, a stranger 
might almost be forgiven the idea that he had really 
arrived at last at that often heard of, but never 
hitherto discovered, region, know as the “back of 
beyond.” But nevertheless, as a fact, the small atom 
of a dwelling-place was well within a strong man’s 
afternoon walk from the noble and important city 
of Edinburgh. 

William Blair had done the journey between the 
two places, to and fro, twice a day, and been none 
the worse for his efforts. The moral entertainment 
he generally received from the solitary occupant of 




Who began it? 31 

the moorland home was an affair of far more 
fatigue to his somewhat stolid temperament. 

“ But kin is kin, and has its duties,” he was wont 
to mutter on such occasions, as though in excuse 
to himself for voluntarily coming in the way of such 
an annoyance. 

Family feeling is fairly strong, it is to be hoped, 
all the world over, but in Scotland it is well known 
to be especially so, and Blair cons : dered it an abso- 
lutely necessary part of his week’s avocations, when 
it was anyway possible, to pay a visit to his wife’s 
cross-grained, sharp-tongued old step-sister. Elspeth 
Spence on her part looked at the matter so 
thoroughly from her brother-in-law’s point of view, 
claiming his attentions as her natural right, that she 
never felt it in the slightest incumbent on her to make 
them pleasant to him. Her first salutation, on this 
June evening of 1660, was of the kind he generally 
received. 

Elspeth Spence was between twenty and thirty 
years older than her step-sister and her brother-in- 
law, but though she looked aged and withered from 
the wear and tear of life’s toils and her temper, she 
was still well able to attend to her own small daily- 
bread concerns, and, above all, she was still gifted with 
a sharp wit, and with a ready-tongued strong voice. 

This said voice was audible to William Blair 
whilst he was still some yards lower down the brae. 
The speaker was hidden within her one-roomed hut 
at present, but, although the dimensions of it were 


3 2 


Graham McCall's Victory. 


of the most restricted, she seemed to consider it 
equally incumbent on her to exert her lungs to 
the utmost, in addressing the family of hens and 
chickens that shared her home. 

The wandering propensities of one particular little 
fluff-ball of life led her to the door of the shieling 
just as her sister’s husband approached it, and it 
required no effort for her capable intellect to 
transfer the torrent of adjurations intended for the 
chicken to the man. 

“ Hech ! ” she screamed at him with a resounding 
suddenness that almost startled even his expectant 
nerves. “ Hech ! then, ye great flat-footed, ill-faured 
loon ye. How many chicks wad ye like me to put 
oot yon, for ye to trample to the death ! ” 

And with a nimbleness which none would have 
supposed possible from her appearance, she stooped, 
and snatched up the adventurous fledgling, which had 
certainly seemed bent on committing suicide, by the 
way in which it had made its foolisji little run right 
into the path of the oncoming visit 

Blair waited silent in the sunshine until the yellow 
atom had been thrown with scant ceremony against 
the mother hen’s side ; and then he coolly stooped his 
head in at the low door, and took a calm survey of 
the interior, from the rag-muddle human bed, almost 
entirely filling up the left half, to the fowls’ dingy 
straw-bed, nearly filling up the other. 

His investigations were watched for an instant with 
a lightning flash of grim amusement shining for that 


Who began it? 


33 


brief space in the keen eyes, and then they were 
pounced upon with a second scream, beginning with 
the usual apostrophe : 

“ Hech ! Mon, what for will ye stand speering 
there, like a blind beetle, then ? Can ye no coom 
ben ? ” 

William Blair drew his head up again, with an em- 
phatic shake in the negative. “No, Elspeth Spence, 
that verily can I no do. When the snaw is under 
foot, and the sleet o’er head, then any shelter may 
be better than nane. But the day — ” 

He raised his eyes to the summer-blue sky, and 
then lowered them again to the apartment which 
he was invited to enter, letting them rest there with 
an expression in them of undisguised disgust. 

“ Na, na,” he ejaculated ; “ I gi’e thanks to the 
powers above, that gied me a wife that knaws hoo 
to gi’e a mon a decent dwelling to abide in.” 

Old Elspeth pushed out her long upper lip, with 
an expression perfectly indescribable for its intense 
scorn. “Ach!” she remarked bitingly, “Mary is 
like to her mither, the bit pawky, dainty, pink- 
cheeked thing my daft father saw fit to bring to fill 
the empty place o’ my ain braw, big mither. The 
twa o’ they puir slips of things wad na mak’ ain o’ 
her.” 

“ No,” was the reply, “ that may be, nor wad all the 
untidinesses o’ their haill lives mak’ ain o’ the days o’ 
yours, I’ll be boun. But that’s neither here nor there 

to my present purpose. Mary thocht maybe ye 

C 


34 


Graham McCall's Victory. 


wad like to hear tell of the braw doings yestreen in 
Edinburgh, for the accession of King Charles the 
Second to his ain lawful throne, and so here I 
am.” 

A glimmer of satisfaction appeared on the rugged 
face of the listener. “ Deed then,” she exclaimed, “ I 
saw the bonny great licht o’ the bonfires frae the hill 
yonder. An’ what rr.air did they do to honour our 
Covenanted King, besides the fires ?” 

Blair assumed the air of importance due to the 
narrator of great things. 

“ Weel,” he said, “ I ha’ just a bit paper here, drawn 
up for me by a frien’ wi’ more knowledge o’ a’ the ins 
and oots than I could get, an you’ll just see, by it, 
that the day was by past an ordinar’ occasion to other 
minds as weeks your ain. 

“ Sermon ended,” writes my frien’, “ the Lord Com- 
missioner returned to the royal palace, attended by 
great numbers of nobility, knights, and gentry ; and 
all feasted at one time, and at several tables, in a 
most splendid and magnificent manner. And that 
nothing might be wanting to complete the solemnity, 
the. Lord Commissioner’s lady, with her daughters, at 
the same time in another room entertained many 
ladies of quality with all the rarities and delicacies 
imaginable, and with such admirable concerts of 
music as were hardly to be looked for from a nation 
of late so sore depressed — ” 

“ Aye, truly ! ” interjected old Elspeth. “ Depressed, 
and tortured, and harassed, hath our puir Scotland 

/ 


Who began it f 


35 


been by her enemies. But the covenanted people o’ 
the Lord ha’ triumphed. Go on the noo. What mair 
did the folks na do to show their joy ? ” 

“Ye’ve made me lose the place,” was the reply, 
“ wi’ your interruptions. I’ve mair than a mind I’ll 
no find it again.” 

But to that threat Elspeth Spence paid no heed. 
She knew well enough that her companion was not 
capable of perpetrating such a piece of cruelty, and 
the next moment the reader continued : 

“ Towards the middle of dinner His Majesty’s 
health begun by the Lord Commissioner, a sign 
given from the terrace, the cannon of the castle 
began to thunder, which was answered from the 
citadel at Leith by the like roaring ; and the great 
pyramid of coals and tar-barrels which was in the 
out-court of the palace was likewise given fire to, 
which for its greatness was extraordinary ; and if it 
had been on the top of a hill in the night time, for 
two miles about it would have shown light to sing 
psalms by, in the smallest print ; and to have put 
intil a sweat any that had been frozen with the 
greatest fit of a cold, and at the same distance too. 

“After dinner the young lords and ladies came out 
and danced all manner of country dances and reels ; 
and none busier than the young Lord Clermont, son 
of the Lord Commissioner, who was so ravished with 
joy that if he had not been restrained he had thrown 
rings, chains, jewels, and all that was precious about 
him, into the fire.” 

C 2 


3 6 


Graham McCall's Victory . 


“ May blessings light upon his bonny heart for his 
free-handedness, ” ejaculated Elspeth, and by way of 
response her companion demanded : 

“ Aye then, an’ if ye cry blessings upon the young 
lord’s head for only what he had a mind to do, what 
good things will ye be praying for your ain auld 
cronie, Jenny Geddes, when I tell ye that she not 
only thought upon far mair than the Lord Clermont, 
but did it too, and wad na be letted from the deed 
by ony ane ? ” 

A quick look of jealous annoyance replaced the 
former one of willing admiration. It was quite true 
that Elspeth Spence and Jenny Geddes had known 
each other ever since they were babies in neighbouring 
huts, sixty years ago, but their friendship was of that 
peculiar kind that rather rejoiced in each other’s 
ill-doings and mishaps than took pleasure in their 
circumstances of a contrary nature. Elspeth betrayed 
her feelings in the matter on the present occasion 
by words as well as looks. 

“ Ha ! that Geddes. She hath aye been a thorn 
in the flesh to me. What new-fangled way hath she 
thought upon now to bring hersel’ to the knowledge 
o’ her neighbours ? ” 

A spice of malice was in the answer : 

“Why she helped raise and light the great bonfire, 
whose ruddy glow ye fand sae bonny as ye looked 
doon upon it from yon hill, ye said.” 

He paused a moment, and glanced up mischievously 
as he lay at his ease upon the heather. 


Who began it? 


37 


“ Are ye hearkening ? ” 

“ Aye, I’m hearkening,” was the glum reply. “ I’m 
fearing it was nane herself the witch would be adding 
to the pile.” 

“ Nay, nay,” said William Blair in a sharper tone. 
“ It was nane hersel’. And don’t let your spite fling 
about siccan a dangerous word as that again, or I’ll 
come anigh ye never more. I mean it.” 

And well might he, or any man with a spark of 
humanity in those days, start aside from the first 
uttered hint of casting the imputation of witchcraft 
at a woman. Obloquy, the most barbarous persecu- 
tion, hideous tortures and death by burning, followed 
in the train of the word “Witch.” Happily for the 
possible escape of one victim, Blair was not one of 
those birds of the air that lend themselves to the 
carrying of such dangerous matters. His indignant 
rebuke administered, he turned back to a safer theme : 

“Nay, ’twas nane hersel’ that Jenny gied to feed 
the bonfire, but ’twas next door to that, for she e’en 
gied that by which she’s boun to gain her livelihood. 
She gathered thegither all her creels, basquets, 
creepes, furms, and the other ingredients that fitted 
up her fruit and salad shop, her radishes, turnips, 
carrots, spinage, cabbage, with all the rest of the 
pot-merchandise that belongs to the garden. And 
even her elbow-chair, wherein she used to sit i’ the 
market looking down upon the meaner sort of the 
neighbours, who regard her the noo as in some sort 
their queen.” 


38 


Graham McCall 9 s Victory. 


Again the listener broke in with her jealous con- 
tempt. “ Queen, forsooth ! When we were bit lassies 
I know which o’ the twa o’ us it was could put her 
best foot foremost.” 

William Blair lifted his eyebrows with half-real, 
half-pretended incredulity. “ Hey now,” he said 
with a certain ring of contradiction in his tones — 
“ Hey now, when ye were bit lassies it may ha’ been 
so, but the Geddes took the wind oot o’ your sails 
then, on the 16th of July, 1637, nigh a quarter of a 
century ago. She was beforehand wi’ ye then, to 
throw the first three-legged stool at the Dean’s head 
in the church of St. Giles, when he began to read 
the new Service Book the English were fain to foist 
upon us, in contradiction o’ our Covenant. What 
ha’ ye to say anent her public speeritedness on that 
occasion, pray ? ” 

It appeared for a moment or two as though she 
would have something to do as well as to say, in 
answer to the question. A race down the brae, after 
that adventurous-minded chicken which had succeeded 
in eluding her vigilance, while she was listening to the 
account of the gay doings in the Northern Metropolis, 
prevented as quick an ebullition as might have been. 
But now the unruly truant was a second time secured, 
and having been tossed unto the straw heap with 
small regard to chicken sensibilities, its owner was 
at liberty to turn her attentions back to her visitor. 
They threatened, as has been said, to be more lively 
than agreeable. 


Who began it ? 


39 


Darting round upon Blair with an old saucepan-lid 
clutched up in her hand, she exclaimed with the look 
and voice of a perfect Fury : 

“ What ha’ I to say, ye speir ! Why I ha’ to say 
that if Jenny Geddes tells that o’ herself, she tells 
lees, and I ha’ this mair to say, that he who repeats 
it repeats lees, the blackest lees that were ever in- 
vented by the black father o’ them and their tellers. 
And my fingers wad think sma’ things to scrat their 
een oot o’ their fause heids.” 

That last statement seemed so true that Blair in- 
stinctively rose from his somewhat helpless position, 
and strode a yard or so farther off, as he replied : 

“ Hech ! hech, never fash yoursel’ to say ony mair 
aboot the matter. When it comes to the question of 
a rampage, I can well believe ’at ye were the foremost 
in’t.” 

Still more irritated by the jeering words Elspeth 
did really fling the old lid at him, with the exclama- 
tion that his foul tongue deserved to be reived out. 

“ Coom awa with you, then,” was the sharp retort, 
“or I’ll mak’ ye compeared before the Kirk Session, 
like as Jenat McKinlay.” This unexpected allusion 
to another neighbour produced another change in the 
moral atmosphere. 

“ Like as wha ? ” asked the old woman, craning 
her neck forward eagerly, curiosity and the love of 
gossip suddenly taking the place of the former fit of 
clamorous anger. “ Tell then, like as wha, would ye 
say?” 


40 


Graham Me Call’s Vie lory. 


William Blair laughed. “ Ah, ha ! Maister Ivie 
may well say that curiosity in the by-past times 
was likened unto a female. As for Jenat McKin- 
lay, she has been convicted of Sabbath-breaking, 
this just gone week in October, by flyting with her 
sister upon the Sabbath-day, and offering to strike 
her.” 

Elspeth Spence flung up her withered brown hands 
with a perfectly honest sentiment of indignation at 
another’s wrong-doings. “ Hech ! the termagant,” she 
exclaimed. “And upon the Sabbath too! Say 
though, did she na get her deserts for siccan a piece 
o’ sinfulness?” 

Blair shrugged his shoulders. “Didna I tell you 
that she was compeared' before the Kirk Session ? 
And do ye suppose the Session let her aff wi’ a word ! 
Nay, nay, mother, we’re not fallen upon times when 
it would be easy to find e’er a Court throughout 
the land the Judges whereof count mercy for a 
better thing than sacrifice. Justice to the utter- 
most farthing, that is the doctrine we are taught 
to-day.” 

“ And why for no?” demanded Elspeth, as she beat 
her hands together impatiently, and betrayed, by the 
rekindling of the flash in her eyes, that she was all 
prepared for another stormy outbreak. 

But her brother-in-law was not of the same mind. 
He was in no mood for the violent exertion of 
quarrelling, and a craftily-breathed sigh of “ Poor old 
Jenat!” once more turned the current of his com- 


Who began it ? 


4i 


panion’s thoughts into a smoother channel. She 
hastily dropped her arms again, with almost a pleading 
air of apology, as she echoed the name : 

“Jenat! Ah yes, to be sure, it is Jenat we are 
speaking on. And what was it they did to her then ? 
Did they put her into the Jugs* on the steps of the 
Market-cross ? ” 

She edged her stool nearer when a nod of the 
head came in the affirmative. News about one’s 
neighbours is always the best of news to some folks, 
you know. William Blair gave another short laugh 
to see how well his ruse had succeeded. 

“Aye, aye, that is just what they did do. Set her 
in the Jugs, with her ditty written and bound upon 
her forehead, for all the people coming into market 
to learn what her offence had been, and to take 
warning. A rare lot of pelting she began to get, I 
can tell you. For she’s nane a favourite, foreby her 
readiness with fingers and foul speech, and her sister 
Margaret is fair within and without as the pearl that 
Master Ivie saith her name signifies.” 

Old Elspeth drew down her upper lip to even more 
than its wonted length, showing scorn by the act as 
plainly as a young girl does when she let her pretty 
mouth curl upwards. 

“Methinks, verily, man, ye’re fou anent yon bit slip 
of a boy, Maister Ivie, and a’ the heathenish learning 

* “ The Jugs,” an iron ring attached to the Market-cross, and 
fastened with a padlock to those convicted of stealing, Sabbath- 
breaking, drunkenness, and other offences, 


42 


Graham McCall's Victory . 


he’s cram his pow with. I’m mair for hearing of the 
McKinlays than about that forward laddie.’* 

Blair’s face flushed hotly. For an instant he forgot 
his indolence, and once again retorted fiercely: 
“‘Forward,’ do ye think to call him! Faith, then, 
there is nane with a more forward modesty, covering 
a greater worth, throughout the length and breadth 
of Scotland. No, not even amongst those who count 
four times his years, or six. But there — ’tis fule’s 
wastry o’ breath gainsaying ye. You ask how Jenat 
McKinlay won through at the cross last market-day. 
Well, it went nigh to go as hardly wi’ her as ’twould 
go wi’ every scolding woman, whose fingers know 
better how to scrat than to spin, if I’d my way with 
them, I’ll be bound. But it seems that her sister is 
of another mind. Scarce had the crowd gathered 
around, and begun to jeer at her and pelt her, 
than—” 

“ Aye, ‘ than,’ ** repeated the listener, her very 
eagerness to hear the whole tale leading her to delay 
its telling by the interruption ; but with very slight 
heed to it William took up his words again, and went 
on : 

“ Scarce had this begun than licht, fleet steps were 
heard flying along the street ; and before one mouth 
could say to another, ‘Yon comes Margaret !’ she was 
through the crowd, up the steps, and standing before 
her sister, tall and slim, wi’ her white arms folded 
across her plaid, and looking like a silver birch-tree 
that Queens it so fairly in the woods. 


Who began it? 


43 


“‘Who wounds my sister wounds me!’ she said, in a 
voice that thrilled through you like the plashing of a 
mountain torrent after the hot march of a summer 
day. And she cast one clear, steadfast glance upon 
the throng, that caused clamouring mouths to close, 
and hands to sink down. Then she just dropped her 
eyelids over her bonny eyes, and began to knit as 
quietly as though she were her lane.” 

The final sentence was spoken in a low, quiet 
tone that had its influence upon Elspeth, and her 
thoughts found their natural utterance in the words 
of Scripture : 

“ * And yet I am not alone, for the Father is with 
Me. I have declared unto them Thy Name, and 
will declare it ; that the love wherewith Thou hast 
loved me may be in them, and I in them.’ ” 

Fierce-tempered, angry scold as the old woman 
was, the teaching of the Covenant yet had its hold 
upon her, and she could reverence those who acted 
up to the teaching of that Bible whose words she 
knew so well, but whose spirit she had as yet but 
faintly grasped. 




CHAPTER IV. 

IVIE McCALL. 

BOY of ten years of age, or thereabouts, 
with a broad forehead, earnest eyes, and 
a firm mouth, sat at a table writing with 
the slow carefulness of a willing but some- 
what untrained scholar. 

Education for even the higher middle classes 
was a luxury difficult of attainment in the remoter 
districts of Scotland, in the troubled days of the 
seventeenth century. 

Had the boy’s father been alive he would, however, 
have stood in no need of tuition, nor would he had 
his uncle, Robert Leighton, been at hand. But his 
parent had been slain whilst his only son was still an 
infant, his uncle was at a distance, and the widowed 
mother had scant leisure for turning governess. Still, 
difficulties notwithstanding, she had managed some- 
thing in that way, and the boy’s growing ambition was 
fast managing still more. Will is a strong key for 
the unlocking of many gates, and it scarcely needed % 




I vie McCall. 


45 


second glance at the boy’s expressive countenance to 
understand that there were few difficulties that men 
have surmounted that Ivie McCall would not also 
be able to overcome, as time and occasion should 
allow. 

Dame McCall let her eyes wander many a time 
from her spinning-wheel, to where her only child 
sat so intent upon his self-sought studies. And there 
was a proud, thankful joy in their expression, until 
at last a shadow of a frown appeared upon his fore- 
head, and then she called to him across the wide 
apartment : 

“ Ivie, my son.” 

So abstracted was he that the call had to be 
repeated before he became aware that he was being 
addressed. Even then the voice was rather dreamy 
in tone with which he replied, according to the 
ceremonious fashion of a bygone age : 

“ Your pardon, Ma’am, did you speak to me ? ” 

“ Nought beyond your name, my son,” was the 
gentle answer. “ But I would add to that, now 
that you are ready to hearken to me, the advice that 
you should put by your books for the day, and 
take your favourite walk out to Bridge of Allen, 
or anywhere else you please.” 

“ Then that will be round about the court, and 
back again,” said Ivie promptly ; “ even if I am 
bound by your commands to take so much of an 
interruption to my work as that. But indeed, mother 
dearest” — and the laughing accent gave way to one of 


46 


Graham McCall's Victory . 


pleading — “ indeed, mother dearest, I do hope you will 
issue no such orders for, at any rate, a good full hour 
to come. The morning is not half through yet, and 
I scarce feel as though I had got fairly settled to 
my studies, far less tired enough of them to wish to 
put them by.” 

Mistress McCall shook her head dubiously. 

“Nay, my dear boy, I fear that your resolution 
may be greater than your strength. It was the sight 
of a very puckered forehead that made me wish for 
you to take a rest.” 

For a few moments the broad, clear forehead was 
puckered up a second time with an effort of memory. 
Then it grew smooth again, and laying down his 
pen he sprang up, and came over to his mother, 
pushing back the curly auburn hair impatiently as 
he exclaimed : 

“ Ah ! Ma’am, you remind me. It was not tired- 
ness that made me frown just now, but thinking 
over what William Blair told me yesterday when 
he got back from Edinburgh. It is but six months 
ago that he brought us news of the grand doings 
there, in honour of our Covenanted King, King 
Charles the Second, ascending the throne of his 
fathers, and now, mother, now — ” 

And young as the lad was his voice shook with 
agitation. Mrs. McCall gazed at him with surprise 
not unmingled with alarm. 

“ And now what, Ivie ? Speak on, my son, for 
you have excited my fears as well as my curiosity. 


I vie McCall . 


47 


Hath ought of mischance befallen our Covenanted 
Sovereign, would you say ? ” 

“ Not our Sovereign, mother ; but our Covenant, 
there is sore need to fear, is threatened, if the rumours 
which William Blair saith are rife in Edinburgh have 
aught in them of truth. ” 

Political troubles and religious conflicts are of 
small account to most boys of ten years of age, 
but it was no wonder that Ivie McCall took a 
precocious and strong interest in them. His father 
was one of those staunch Covenanters who, having 
sworn allegiance to a Covenanted King, refused 
to cease praying for him during the days of the 
Protectorate. He had thus already rendered himself 
an object for suspicious watchfulness and threats, 
when William Cuningham, Lord Glencairn, made his 
offer to the exiled Charles, of receiving the Royal 
commission from him to raise and command an 
army of restoration in Scotland. 

Thd tempting offer was of course accepted, 1653, 
and this gave the laird of McCall the full opportunity 
he desired to prove his loyalty and faithfulness. The 
long-protracted struggles and sufferings, of more 
than a century, had so far deepened the tone of 
feeling in Scotland, that his wife made scarcely any 
resistance to his wishes. She knew too well that 
had she been a man she would have followed the 
same course. As it was she gave him a proud, fond 
smile for farewell, and then returned within the gates 
of their home to pray and weep over their infant 


48 


Graham McCall's Victory. 


child, the little Ivie, her prayers divided between her 
King in banishment, and her husband fighting for 
his restoration. 

And at length the sad news came that the Laird 
of McCall was one of the few who had been slain, 
before Glencairn’s ill-managed, fruitless enterprise 
finally broke down. And the widow and orphan, driven 
from their hereditary home, deprived of their property, 
were compelled to accept, with all gratitude, the 
asylum found for them, in the neighbourhood of 
Stirling, by their faithful family retainer, William 
Blair. 

Even had Dame McCall been silent on the subject, 
Ivie would have been thoroughly posted up as to 
the troubles and wrongs of himself and his country ; 
for Blair had taken this as another matter of 
conscience, to instil the story into his young laird’s 
mind in every minutest particular, from the first 
dawning of reasoning faculties in the child’s 
mind. 

Even already, at scarcely five years of age, little 
Ivie understood, in some fashion, what the Scottish 
Covenant was ; and knew the nature of the oath 
that his father, the King, and nearly the whole of 
his countrymen, high and low, rich and poor, had 
sworn to guard with their lives. At ten years of age 
he felt bound to it, himself, with a strength and 
tenacity few people in quiet peaceable times would 
imagine to be possible. 

The news that had been imparted to him the past 


I vie McCall. 


49 


evening had given him the sleepless night, and the 
heavy-hearted morning, that most boys would only 
suffer if they learnt that a favourite pony was to 
be sold, or that they were forbidden the coveted 
permission to join a cricket club. 

The very work he had chosen for his day’s studies 
bore upon the present subjects of his perturbed 
meditations. After a few more words to his mother, 
with regard to Blair’s tidings, he went back to the 
table to fetch the sheets he had been writing so 
industriously. 

“ Hearken, I pray you, dearest mother,” he said. 
“ I have been copying out some sentences of our 
National Covenant, the better to impress them upon 
mine own remembrance. And it seems to me too 
terrible to think that any Scotsman can be found 
who will, of his own freedom, break through the 
great bond it lays on us.” 

Mistress McCall uttered a deep, low sigh. She and 
hers had at any rate paid a heavy price sooner than 
break through it. She followed the sigh with the 
bestowal of a grave smile of approval upon the young 
student. 

“ Read out your sentences, my son,” she said. 
“ Let me hear where your choice has fallen.” 

As that was just what he was all eagerness to do, 
Ivie needed no second bidding, but started off at 
once, the strong words losing nothing of due emphasis 
as they were uttered by his ringing, rich- toned voice. 

“ I began here, mother, some way in : 

D 


5o 


Graham McCall's Victory . 


“‘We Noblemen, Barons, Gentlemen, Burgesses, 
Ministers, and Commons, under-subscribing, con- 
sidering divers times before, and especially at this 
time, the danger of the true reformed religion, of the 
King’s honour, and of the publick peace of the 
kingdom, by the manifold innovations and evils, 
generally contained, and particularly mentioned in 
our late supplications, complaints, and protestations ; 
do hereby profess, and before God, His angels, and 
the world, solemnly declare, That with our whole 
heart we agree, and resolve all the days of our life 
constantly to adhere unto and to defend the foresaid 
true religion, and to labour, by all means lawful, to 
recover the purity and liberty of the Gospel, as it 
was established and professed before the aforesaid 
novations. 

******* 

“‘And therefore, from the knowledge and con- 
science of our duty to God, to our King and country, 
without any worldly respect or inducement, so far as 
human infirmity will suffer, wishing a further measure 
of the Grace of God for this effect ; we promise and 
swear, by the GREAT NAME OF THE LORD 
OUR GOD, to continue in the profession and obedi- 
ence of the foresaid religion ; and that we shall defend 
the same, and resist all these contrary errors and cor- 
ruptions, according to our vocation, and to the utter- 
most of that power that God hath put in our hands, 
all the days of our life.’ ” 

Ivie paused and looked up at his companion, 
feeling greatly gratified at the glow on her cheeks, 
and the light in her eyes. He put all down to 
the account of sympathy with what was read, and 


I vie McCall. 


5i 


was more gratified than if he had guessed how 
much of the mother’s interest was centred in the 
reader. However, the share given to both led her 
to say rather quickly : 

“ Have you written out any more, Ivie dear ? Your 
first extract has been well chosen, to my thinking.” 

Ivie’s face brightened gladly a!t the praise, but 
the next moment it grew grave again. “ I chose 
it partly because it contains that great, strong, 
solemn oath, which looks even the more solemn, 
you remember, mother, from being written in great 
capitals : 

“‘We promise and swear by the GREAT NAME 
OF THE LORD OUR GOD.’” 

Again a silence, till little McCall broke it with 
a low-breathed — “ Oh ! mother, how can any one 
dare to go back from that ! ” 

The only answer he received this time was a bend 
of the head. That vow was verily a solemn one, 
— one to bind men even to the death, and he who 
had just read it out with such fervour was the only 
son of his mother — a widow. And Blair had brought 
word that there were troubled rumours in the air. 

At that minute Mistress McCall’s own allegiance 
to the Covenant was wavering, and from the very 
circumstance of her boy being so enthusiastic for 
its upholding. But o' course nothing of this even 
remotely suggested itself to Ivie’s mind, and turning 
to a second of his carefully-written sheets he said : 

“ Here is another paragraph I have copied down. 

D 2 


5 2 


Graham McCall's Viciory, 


It immediately follows the last. That was specially 
about our religion. This is about honouring the 
King.” 

But as he was about to go on with his reading the 
door of the spence* opened, and the faithful family 
retainer and friend, William Blair, appeared, looking 
very different as to expression and deportment to 
when we saw him, some months ago, lying on the 
heathery brae-side outside the door of his sister-in- 
law’s hovel. 

* “ Spence,” the private family sitting-room, in contra- 
distinction to that in which the family and servants all assembled 
together. 



CHAPTER V. 


A REMINDER FOR CHARLES //. 

AD it not been for the devotion of William 
Blair to his dead master’s widow and child, 
and for the generosity shown to them, at 
first by Blair’s father, and of late by him- 
self, it is doubtful whether either of them would have 
survived the miseries following the laird’s death, But 
had any stranger witnessed the relations between the 
two parties he must have supposed the favours to 
have been bestowed on the other side. Not all Mis- 
tress McCall’s open expressions of gratitude for a 
home, maintenance, and most watchful service, could 
prevail upon William Blair to diminish one jot of the 
almost exaggerated deference he saw fit to pay to 
her, and to the disinherited young laird. 

“ Use is second nature,” as the saying has it, and 
certainly of late the lady had grown so accustomed 
to the man’s reverential ways that she had both 
ceased to argue against them, and to remember very 
clearly that she had no claim to be treated with such 
great observance. But the readings from the National 



54 


Graham McCall's Victory . 


Covenant had brought back many old memories, and 
as her eyes rested upon Blair standing humbly just 
within the doorway, waiting permission to speak or 
to come forward, she felt a sudden compunction for 
her own forgetfulness, and at the same time some- 
thing almost of anger against the worthy fellow him- 
self for having so acted as to aid her fault. There 
was an unusually sharp accent in her voice as she 
addressed him : 

“ William Blair, almost you make me think it must 
be my duty that I should take my child’s hand, and 
wander forth whither the Lord might lead, when I see 
thee stand thus, within a dwelling that should of right 
be thine own home.” 

Even whilst she was speaking he came forward up 
the room, and rejoined with more vehemence than his 
phlegmatic temperament often displayed : 

“ Hech ! then, seek not to turn one man from show- 
ing respect to those who suffer for the cause of the 
Covenant. Rather spend all energies in teaching the 
wavering thousands of our nation to recognize the 
path of duty boldly, and to follow it fearlessly. These 
are nane the days, forsooth, in which to cease from 
paying honour to the memory of those who suffered 
for our country’s truth.” 

“For our country’s truth?” murmured Ivie, rather 
taken with the full-sounding expression, but at the 
same time not quite able to grasp its meaning. 

Blair turned round upon him. “ Aye, Master Ivie, 
for our country’s truth. Did not our Scotland’s sons, 


A Reminder for Charles II. 


55 


from the highest to the lowest, from the nobleman 
great at Court, aye, truly, from the King himself 
down to the shepherd-lad upon the hills, did we not 
all swear to keep and to defend our Covenant with 
our lives ! And what all her children vow to maintain, 
do they not pledge their country to ? ” 

A quick nod of the head signified growing com- 
prehension of the matter, but, before anything more 
could be said between the two, Mistress McCall 
broke in with anxious questionings on her side, as to 
the foundation for what her boy had told her an hour 
since. 

“Think you truly, William Blair, that there are 
signs threatening cur national kirk ? ” 

The man’s powerful chest heaved visibly beneath 
his plaid before he answered, with a vehemence the 
more impressive from his usual slow-tongued speech : 
“Aye, verily are there! Signs from within and from 
without. Awhile since a party of the Remonstrants, 
with our zealous James Guthrie himself for one of 
the number, drew up a supplication to His Majesty, 
King Charles the Second, to remember his God and 
our holy Covenant, lest worldly and wicked counsellors 
should lead his feet aside, and draw his heart from 
the right way. They addressed him fairly, as our 
Covenanted Monarch. They besought him that he 
would not take offence that they made themselves 
the Lord’s remembrancers to him, that more than 
once, by solemn oath under hand and seal in presence 
of Almighty God, the Searcher of hearts, he had 


56 


Graham McCall's Victory. 


allowed and approved of the National Covenant, and of 
the Solemn League and Covenant, faithfully obliging 
himself to prosecute the ends thereof in his station 
and calling. This is what they wrote, lady ; and, 
whether somewhat that they added might be of 
stronger words, still, nought was there in the paper 
that, the world could not but see, was written by 
these men without prayer, and a longing from their 
souls to work for righteousness’ sake.” 

He broke off with a gasp, and, carried away by his 
rapid, passionate torrent of speech, it was also with 
a gasp that Mistress McCall ejaculated her eager 
query : 

“ Well?” 

He snatched up the word, as though almost glad 
in his present mood to be offered something fresh 
that he might at least assume to be angered at. 

ut Well ! ’ he exclaimed, and repeated the word yet 
again with sharp, short emphasis, as though he spat 
it from his mouth. “ ‘ Well ! ’ na, na, lady ! There is 
no ‘ well ’ in this case.” 

“ Nay, good Blair, I but put it as a question,” began 
the lady in remonstrance. But for once Blair had 
no room in his mind for considerations of deference. 
He went on as though without even hearing the 
interruption. 

“Verily there is na room for ony ‘well’ in this 
business, for I find nocht in it but ill, forby the 
grand supplication itsel’. What think ye, lady, they 
will have done with it, and wi’ those wha framed it 


A Reminder for Charles II. 


57 


for the King? Say then, what think ye they ha’ dune 
wi’ t’ane and tither ? ” 

It was easy enough to see, by the questioner’s 
lowering brow and indignant gestures, that no favour- 
able reception had been accorded to either, but Kate 
McCall, in her innocent-mindedness, and the ignor- 
ance of her remote seclusion from the world, could 
form no guess that she felt to be reasonable as to the 
treatment they might have received. And after a 
few moments of impatient waiting William Blair 
went on with his account of the news he had brought 
back from his visit to Edinburgh. 

“ Hech ! ” he muttered as though to himself, “ wha 
would believe as I could be siccan a fule as to suppose 
that those to whom belongeth, as the Lord hath said, 
the kingdom of heaven, would compass the thought 
o’ what evil can be done by the children o’ the world 
and Satan. Nay, my lady,” and he spoke aloud 
again ; “ nay, I maun e’en tell you, I doubt, for 
neither ye, nor Maister Ivie there, wad ever mak’ 
oot to imagine.” 

Ivie came nearer, his face lifted solemnly to the 
servant’s face. “Oh! William, you did not tell me 
anything about all this. The King has not had the 
minister and his friends put to death, has he ?” 

Equally solemnly Blair laid his hand on the boy’s 
shoulder. “ No, Master Ivie. Whether the King has 
been allooed a hand i’ the affair at all I canna say, and 
those wha ha’ managed it ha’ no killed the saints — as 
yet. But they ha’ cast the hail o’ those wha ha’ 


5 » 


Graham McCall's Victory . 


drawn oop the sooplication, intil the jail i’ the Castle 
o’ Edinbro, wi’ the exception o’ James Guthrie, wha 
has escaped, the Lord be praised ! And the written 
and signed paper itsel’ mony a ane, besides me, is 
fain to judge has gane to the gay, sinfu’ Court in the 
English Babylon to mak’ fule’s food for jesting upon.” 

And, with that last possibly-probable item of news, 
the Covenanter’s feelings appeared to grow altogether 
too strong for his control, and with a hurried obeisance 
he turned and quitted the apartment. 

Mistress McCall looked after h : m with something 
of disappointment mingling with the sorrow in her 
face. 

“ Ivie, my son, this is a sad and grievous tale that 
our friend has brought us. But I would that he had 
delayed to leave us until I had learnt something more 
from him, anent the London mission of our learned 
and skilful minister, Mr. James Sharp. What can 
the treachery be that you say he hinted at, as con- 
cerning that undertaking, and who can it be that is 
suspected of being the traitor ? ” 

Later on in the day she learnt the answer to these 
questionings. 




CHAPTER VI. 

A TRAITOR IN THE HEART OF THE CAMP. 

ERHAPS it was that William Blair con- 
sidered the affairs he had come to speak 
of were of such moment as to over-ride 
the commoner distinctions between fellow- 
creatures, or possibly the friendly rebuke administered 
in the morning had some weight. But, however that 
might be, when he entered the spence in the evening 
he did not pause for a welcome as he had done at an 
earlier hour, but advanced to the upper end of the 
room with a certain grave dignity, which in its turn 
was even more unlike the appearance he presented 
to old Elspeth than was that of the subservient 
manner of the morning. 

Even little McCall was struck with something 
unaccustomed in the bearing of his father’s faithful 
soldier-servant, and, checking the eager exclamation 
about to burst from his lips, he dropped quietly down 
on to the three-legged stool at his mother’s feet, the 
same humble seat which he was in the habit of 



6o 


Graham McCalls Victory. 


carrying for his mother’s use when they attended the 
conventicles, and prepared himself to listen with that 
rapt attention which had already given him such an 
unusual insight into the events and sentiments of 
his day. 

The lady raised her eyes to the man’s face with 
a gentle smile of greeting. “Ah! Blair, I was 
confident that you would not leave my just and 
natural desire to know all you have to tell unsatisfied. 
But I fear me there is to be more grief gleaned in 
the hearing than contentment ? ” 

“ That may too surely be affirmed,” was the reply. 
‘‘Unless you would account yourself of the number 
of our enemies, who doubtless must well-nigh crack 
their throats now with shouting for base joy over the 
foul treason in our camp.” 

Mistress McCall uttered a hasty ejaculation, laying 
her hand on her boy’s head. “ Ah ! Blair, I trusted 
that Ivie had mistaken you, when he brought me 
that black word as from your mouth ; but you repeat 
it then ? Can it be advisedly ? ” 

“Would to God that it were not so!” answered 
Blair. “But I have news direct from London that 
hath borne it in upon me, beyond the reach of all 
questioning, that there is now, even in these very 
hours, ripening the very blackest treason to the cause 
in the midmost heart of the camp — ” 

“ And the name of the traitor is — ” 

“ James Sharp.” 

A silence, long, deep, and intense, followed the 


A Traitor in the Heart of the Camp . 6 1 


utterance of that name. It was broken at last by 
Mistress McCall. 

“ Are there two James Sharps ?” 

The query was put in an awed whisper. The reply 
was in a tone so low-breathed from its sternness that 
it was almost a whisper too. 

“ There may be two, there may be two thousand. 
But may the Almighty stretch His mercy to the 
uttermost for their forgiveness, if they be but one- 
tenth part so deep-dyed in sinfulness as he, you wot 
of, and I mean ! ” 

Again a long pause, and again the lady broke it, 
hoping against hope, in her bewilderment of sur- 
prise and apprehens : on, that there must be some 
mistake somewhere, either in her ears or in her under- 
standing. 

“ But, Blair,” she began, with an accent that almost 
appeared to be pleading with him to say that he had 
been frightening her with shadows as unreal as a 
child’s bogey. “ But, Blair, you forget — do you not 
forget — the clever minister, and noted Covenanter, 
Mr. James Sharp, hath been chosen as our repre- 
sentative, as a pleader in especial for the maintenance 
of the rights and simple purity of our Scottish Kirk. 
He hath been deputed our messenger-in-chief to the 
Court and Parliament in London, because he hath 
already many times of old approved himself full of 
needful zealousness.” 

Blair’s head had sunk down towards his chest in 
an attitude of profound dejection. He scarcely raised 


62 


Graham McCall's Victory . 


it now as he said slowly, and in the same stern tone 
as before : 

“ Did I not say that it was deep within the camp’s 
heart that the treason lurked and cherished itself, 
feeding itself fat and strong with the blood of the 
victim it is about to overthrow ? ” 

Ivie McCall had been sitting for the past few 
minutes with his curly head clasped between his 
hands, an attitude that was unconscious mimicry of 
his good uncle, the truly Christian minister, Robert 
Leighton, whose teaching his mother so much desired 
for her boy. He still maintained the same position 
when William Blair came to an end of his passionate 
outburst, but nevertheless his voice was quite distinct 
as he said quietly : 

“ ‘ About to overthrow ! * Will, then, the power of 
evil be greater than the power of good ? If it is well 
for the world to see that a nation can keep sacred a 
sacred vow, will God refuse His aid that it shall be 
done ? ” 

The simple question struck home, the keener 
perhaps, that it was but a repetition of sentences and 
assertions put in every variety of form, and on all 
possible occasions, by Blair himself. 

The teaching had fallen upon teachable ears, and 
now, when Blair had almost felt as if his own faith in 
his own teaching were dying, it was given back to 
him. A deeper tinge dyed his weather-bronzed 
cheeks, and the firm mouth quivered for a moment, 
ere he returned an answer as one justly rebuked. 


A Traitor in the Heart of the Camp. 63 


“Your pardon, Maister I vie ; and most truly do I 
crave it baith of ye, and of the Shepherd o’ the sheep 
Himser, for daring to speak sic thoughts as may turn 
His lambs oot o’ the right path. Nay, nay, never 
believe me, nor ony ither mon as shall seek to lead ye 
to think sma’ things o’ the Almighty power o’ the 
Creator. We are a’ in His hands, our country, our 
Covenant and a’, and, as David said, so will we say to 
our Father : 

“ ‘ Thou, O God, hast been a shelter for us, and a 
strong tower from the enemy. . . . For Thou, O 
God, hast heard our vows : Thou hast given us the 
heritage of those that fear Thy name. . . . Truly 
our soul waiteth upon God ; from Him cometh our 
salvation. He only is our Rock and our Salvation ; 
He is our defence, we shall not be greatly moved. . . . 
In God is our salvation and our glory : the rock of 
our strength, and our refuge, is in God.’ ” 

He waited a moment, and then, evidently restored 
in a degree to his wonted calm by the repetition 
of the verses from these most comforting Psalms, 
he said more tranquilly : 

“Nay, nay, Maister Ivie, ye have the root o’ the 
matter in ye, and no mistake. The Lord is aye on 
the side o’ justice an’ honour. And so, all faithless 
misdoubtings aside, we’re boun’ to win in the long run, 
and to win safe to covert. But meantime I, for my 
pairt, daurna hope that there will be nane called, like 
Stephen of old, to seal their testimony wi’ their bluid. 
When James comes back, turned from shepherd into 


6 4 


Graham McCall's Victory. 


wolf, there will be a sair worrying begin amang the 
flocks, an’ those who strive to minister to their needs 
according as the vows bind them.” 

This digression ended, Mistress Kate McCall 
harked back to the former subject of James Sharp, 
who had been sent up to London but a short time 
since as the Presbyterians’ Ambassador, as their very 
especial representative, as the lady had truly said, 
with this for his chief instruction : 

“ You are to use your utmost endeavours that the 
Kirk of Scotland may, without interruption or en- 
croachment, enjoy the freedom and privileges .... 
ratified by the laws of the land.” 

“And how think ye, my lady,” asked William 
Blair, as the conversation progressed ; “ how think 
ye the sworn, perjured Covenanter, James Sharp, is 
obeying those instructions ? ” 

The lady shook her head sadly. She was beginning 
to grow convinced that her companion had reason for 
his wrath against the clever, crafty minister, who, as a 
fact, was using his brethren’s fulness of trust in him as 
stepping-stones for his own unscrupulous ambition. 

“Tell me, my good Blair, all that you have learnt, 
and fully if you will,” she said wearily. “ For what 
you have already said hath made me heart-tired, and 
I care not for guessing at sad riddles. Perchance he 
who hath told thee these bad tidings is himself 
misinformed ? ” 

Blair’s face lighted for a moment with a smile, not 
of mirth, but keen significance. He glanced quickly 


A Traitor in the Heart of the Camp. 65 


round the room, at the windows, stepped to the 
door, and pushed against it noiselessly to make sure 
that it was fast. Then he came back nearer to his 
companions than before, and bending his head 
murmured below his breath : 

“ My lady, I have my tidings, such as they are, 
from the lips of John Knox’s own descendant ; from 
the mouth of the staunch and noble minister, John 
Welch.” 

His hearer started. She had certainly little enough 
expected to hear that her servant’s informant was one 
of the chief of the religious leaders in the country. 
Her doubts as to the truth of the news must now be 
finally laid at rest, but a new wonder had taken their 
place. Blair was quite prepared for that, and 
answered it. 

“ Yes,” he said in the same cautious tone as before ; 
‘‘yes, I am known to Mr. John Welch, and have 
frequent interviews with him in various places. But 
it is not expedient either for him, for me, nor for you, 
that this should be discovered. He is too resolute 
and fearless an adherent to the Covenant to be in 
favour in high places. They are growing very bitter 
against him lately, for the attempt hath been made 
to bribe him from his conscience, by the offer of the 
Archbishopric of St. Andrews, and the base attempt 
hath failed with him, as with Robert Douglas also, to 
be tried wi’ mair success upon another.” 

“Upon James Sharp,” sighed Mistress McCall. 

A bend of the head answered her, as he continued : 

E 


66 


Graham McCall's Victory . 


“Mr. Welch was but just back when I went to 
Edinburgh last week, from the toilsome journey he 
hath lately taken to London, whither he had gone 
to see how the land lay. And with his own eyes he 
hath witnessed James Sharp feasting wi’ the proud 
ecclesiastics o’ the English Kirk, fawning upon the 
greatest o’ the land, who are the known enemies o’ 
our ain, and laughing, aye, laughing wi’ the loudest, 
at jokes made upo’ those men and those things that, 
as a Covenanted Minister o’ the Kirk o’ Scotland, he 
should hold most sacred. Mair than that — ” 

And the speaker broke off for a few moments 
whilst he felt within the folds of his plaid for some- 
thing he had placed there for safe keeping. It was 
not far to seek. A small piece of folded paper, and 
as he opened it he went on : 

“ Mair than that, he adds the cooward sin o’ hypo- 
crisy to his other crimes. He writes to his freend, 
good Robert Douglas, as though he were engaged, up 
there in the great city, fighting heart and soul for the 
true cause, stemming a raging torrent as for life or 
death. And all the while he is drifting, drifting, an’ 
glad to drift, the way the pleasantest stream o’ 
worldly delights may carry him. But I, and mair than 
I, ha’ oor eyes upon him, and the day may yet- come 
when he will wish his eyes had been blinded before 
they saw to write such words as these.” 

So immersed in his thoughts had the man become, 
that during the past few moments he had forgotten 
the presence in the apartment of any but himself, 


A Traitor in the Heart of the Camp. 67 

and Ivie saw, with some feelings of very pardonable 
vexation at foiled inquisitiveness, that the small 
interesting-looking piece of paper just produced from 
the plaid’s folds was being mechanically doubled up 
again, preparatory to being returned to its former 
resting-place. 

“ Blair, please — ” he began .timidly, and there 
stopped. But his voice had already recalled his 
friend to his surroundings, and the rugged face unbent 
again as it turned to the boy who possessed so large 
a share of the man’s strong affections. 

“ What would ye then wi’ Blair, Maister Ivie?” he 
asked, stooping low to lay his hand on the boy’s 
shoulder. “ Would ye that I should cease my cover- 
ings the noo, for awhile, and gang for a stretch across 
the moors wi’ ye, afore the sun gies them up to the 
mists for another night ? Coom awa’ then.” 

And suiting the action to the word he drew the 
little fellow up on to his feet. But Ivie resisted with 
a half-laugh. 

“ No, no, William, I do not wish to come away out 
with you yet. But — ” 

“ Aye, ‘ But ’ — Is it ‘ but ’ ye do wish me to gi’e my 
lang tongue a bit rest, and let yours wag awhile ? ” 

Ivie laughed outright now. “ Oh, William, you 
are not guessing cleverly to-day at all. It’s — it’s — I 
thought maybe there was somewhat in that paper ye 
meant to read to us ? ” 

“ Pa — per. To — read — ” began Blair musingly, till 
Ivie put up his hand and touched the small folded 


68 


Graham McCall s Victory . 


sheet, and then recollection returned in full force, and 
with it the stern, indignant looks once more. 

“Ah! true,” he ejaculated. “Aye, Maister Ivie, I 
have here indeed somewhat that I would read to ye 
and to your mother, that in time to come ye may 
remember the double-facedness of Scotland’s fine 
Archbishop! I have lines here, copied by Mr. Welch 
from letters of James Sharp’s to Mr. Robert Douglas. 
They are but few, but they are enough.” 

“ Enough for what ? ” asked little McCall. 

Blair clenched his hand over the paper, as he 
answered in those stern unaccustomed tones that he 
had been speaking in, the past hour : 

“ Enough to show what manner of man he is whose 
lying heart dictated them. Enough, as I have said, 
to bear evidence in the future.” 

So saying he smoothed out the crumpled sheet 
again, and with a sign of request for permission, 
addressed to the lady, he proceeded quickly to 
read the contents — with his own comments inter- 
spersed : 

* “ My good friend Douglas, ye write of proposing 
to join me here, to help forward the good work. 
But I would advise you no. Were it for your own 
pleasure I would of course urge that ye should 
come, but I know that ye are not capable of being 
tickled by the desire of seeing the grandeur of a 
Court.’ 

" See you ! ” muttered the reader, “ see you there 
the crafty touch. A covert hint that if the noble and 


A Traitor in the Heart of the Camp. 69 


simple-minded Robert Douglas did join him, friend 
J ames Sharp would choose to believe that the plea of 
duty did but cover a giddy, womanish love of fine 
sight-seeing. And further on he tells him that — 

“ ‘ When matters come to a greater ripeness two or 
three months hence, your coming may be of more 
use and satisfaction to yourself, and advantage to the 
public.’ 

" That is to say,” put in Ivie with flushed cheeks ; 
"that is to say, I suppose, William, that he won’t 
mind his joining him when he has got everything 
settled as he wants, first ? ” 

“Verily,” came the grim reply, “that is even what 
Mr. Welch hath said. But Mr. Douglas hath too 
upright a nature to deal with rogues. And besides 
there are others about him who do so idolize the King 
as that a man might more safely, it would seem, be 
guilty of blasphemy than say aught against the 
glory of the King’s perfections. And thus, as Charles 
Stuart hath sworn, by the taking of the Covenant vows 
upon him, that we shall have no bishops, so they 
declare we shall have none, nor do I think they will 
believe how easily vows may be set aside until they 
shall actually see that the bishops be settled in their 
midst ! ” 

The tears rolled heavily down the widow’s cheeks. 
It did indeed seem a bitter thing to her that her 
husband should have died for his faith to a Cove- 
nant King, who, himself, could coolly set aside the 


7o 


Graham McCall’s Victory. 


Covenant. But not noticing her emotion William 
Blair turned back to his paper, saying passionately : 

“Here is another of the false-hearted ministers 
sayings, by which he thinks to fling the mist over us, 
until he shall have grasped unto him the purple and 
fine linen of a Dives : 

“‘I find a high, loose spirit appearing here, and 
I hear they talk of bringing in Episcopacy into 
Scotland, which I trust they shall never be able to 
effect. I am much saddened and wearied out with 
what I hear and see. The Lord fit us for future 
trials, and establish us in His way.’ ” 

As Blair for the second time folded and put by his 
notes, Mistress McCall choked back the flowing tears, 
and rose, with a gracious bend of the fair head, by 
way of token that she would now be alone. Sorrow- 
ful memories were crowding thickly upon her, and she 
felt that she must give a short time to the grief which 
she so rarely allowed herself to indulge. 

“ What are the future trials that Mr. Sharp fears, 
William ? ” asked Ivie, as the two left the house 
together. 

The answer was short and sharp. “ Hatred and 
contempt, Maister Ivie. Pray that you may never 
merit them.” 



CHAPTER VII. 

“ MINISTER OF THE GOSPEL AT STIRLING." 

RROW for her son’s fatherlessness and 
her own widowhood did not alone occupy 
Mistress McCall’s heart, as she sat weeping 
for some long time after her faithful friend 
and retainer had left her. 

During the nine years of her residence at Blair’s 
Farm she had enjoyed the ministry of him who styled 
himself “ Minister of the Gospel at Stirling ; ” that 
James Guthrie, who, she now learnt through Blair, had 
fallen under the displeasure of the Crown so heavily 
as to be in danger of his liberty at least, if life itself 
were not destined to pay the forfeit of his boldness 
for the cause of truth and righteousness, as it 
presented itself to his apprehension. 

So greatly had she appreciated his vivid eloquence 
that none of the heavy northern rains of spring with 
their accompaniment of bitter blasts, nor the raging 
snow-storms of winter had prevented her taking the 
five-mile walk to and fro to the Stirling kirk, on every 




72 


Graham McCall's Victory. 


Sabbath that her favourite minister’s restless energy 
permitted him to occupy his own pulpit. 

Certainly it was not all “ Gospel ” that Kate 
McCall, and the others of his mmense congrega- 
tions heard from his lips. But it harmonized far 
more closely with the spirit of the times and the 
general temperaments of his auditors, that he chose 
the texts for his discourses from the Old Testament, 
Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and some of the Psalms, rather 
than from the New. Still less they regretted, in that 
period of difficult travelling and no newspapers, that 
the discourses themselves ranged over so vast and 
various a field of subjects that oftentimes the text 
got lost sight of altogether. 

But whatever else faded out of view some things 
well worth the having remained ever to the fore — 
the preacher’s own integrity and honesty of purpose ; 
his fervent longing to so teach and exhort his hearers 
as that they might ever have courage to hold fast the 
profession of the faith without wavering ; and his dis- 
tinct, absolute trust in God, in His infinite goodness, 
love, and wisdom. “The causes of God’s wrath” 
were not to be reckoned to the account of a vengeful 
Creator who delighted in sacrifice, but to man’s 
iniquity, who had been created upright, but had 
sought out many inventions. 

It might have seemed strange to some that a 
woman so essentially and sweetly womanly as Kate 
McCall, should have given her preference to a 
minister bitter in his wrath, fierce in his denuncia- 


“ Minister of the Gospel at Stirling 73 


tions as James Guthrie. But the gentlest women 
are generally attracted to the strongest-natured men, 
and besides, the widow had suffered so terribly her- 
self, from the evils of the times, that it was little 
wonder if even to her ears his wrathful invectives 
sounded sometimes welcome as grand music. 

As she sat there weeping silently in her quiet room, 
she wondered sadly if she should ever hear him again, 
if the thunderous rhetoric would ever again reverbe- 
rate around the bare kirk walls as he carried the rapt 
hearts of his audience along with him, while he hurled 
great epithets, hot with a burning indignation, at 
lukewarm partizans, perjured persecutors, and the 
base sinners against laws human and divine, who had 
provoked God’s just wrath and indignation against 
a people who wilfully erred from His appointed 
ways. 

“ Shall I ever behold him again with mortal eyes ? 
Ah ! dear Lord, beseech Thee grant I may,” she 
murmured, almost breaking off midway in her 
utterance of the last word as a slight sound beside 
her struck upon her ears. 

She turned towards it, and as she did so a cry 
rose to her lips and died there. The distaff fell 
from her hands upon the floor, with a little thud 
that seemed to her shaken nerves to be a resounding 
crash loud as a peal of thunder. 

She had offered up a prayer but that moment, 
and there stood its answer with her in the room. 
She tried to rise, but her limbs failed her. 


74 


Graham McCall" s Victory . 


“Mr. James Guthrie!” she whispered, scarcely 
letting her breath give the name utterance. 

He approached a step nearer. “ Even so,” he said ; 
“the servant of the Lord, James Guthrie. And in 
the flesh as yet, Mistress McCall, so ye need not to 
speir at me yon timorous gate, as though ye saw a 
ghaist. I am my ain sinful sel’, the hunted mon, 
James Guthrie.” 

“Hunted!” ejaculated the lady, the colour which 
the sudden shock, and not superstitious fear, had 
driven away beginning to return to her cheeks. 
a Hunted, do you say, sir ? Is it the sad truth then 
that William Blair hath but this very evening told 
me ?” 

Obeying a mute invitation, the minister dropped 
wearily down into a seat as he replied : “ If William 
Blair hath told ye that the spirit of evil is abroad, the 
spirit of falsehood and persecution, he hath told you 
the sad and awful truth, no doubt. And furthermore, 
for truth-speaking my brethren have they clapped 
into their dungeons, and me they seek.” 

Mistress McCall leant forward with tearful, anxious 
eyes — “ Ah ! but you will not let them find you — you 
will hide?” 

A calm, lofty smile rested on the stern-featured, 
rugged face. “Aye,” he said slowly as though he 
weighed his words. “ Aye, for a season I am content 
to hide even as Elijah retreated from the enemies 
who thirsted for his blood, and as our Master, His ain 
sel’, hid Himself from those who would put Him to 


“ Minister of the Gospel at Stirling? 75 


death, until His appointed work in the world should 
be accomplished to the end.” 

Whilst he was still speaking, and resting in the 
chair with the cool unconcern of an unmarked man 
living in an age of tranquillity, the door of the 
apartment opened brusquely, and William Blair 
appeared. Giving a rapid glance around, a cry of 
mingled relief and consternation escaped him, to be 
checked almost before it had found vent. 

Stepping within the room, and dashing close the 
door, he sprang with one bound across to the minister, 
nearly with the same movement tearing him up from 
the chair. 

“ Sir ! ” he exclaimed beneath his breath, and with 
the impetuosity of the truest friendship. “ Know ye 
not, sir, that your pursuers are close upon your 
track ? And ye sit here, in the broad free light, as 
though letters had fresh come from the backsliding 
King and Parliament praying ye to follow the bent o’ 
your ain will, and to spare nought in minding them 
o' their duties, an’ their late sinfuness ! Hide ye, sir, 
hide quickly, for ye ha’ na time to spare.” 

Mistress McCall wrung her hands, and the only 
one of the three there who maintained a calm face 
and tranquil bearing was the man who was in such 
jeopardy. Looking quietly and critically around at 
the walls of the room he replied coolly : 

“ Thanks, friend, for thine eagerness in my behalf, 
but I judge I have time enough to elude my pursuers 
on this occasion, at any rate. Dame,” he said, 


76 


Graham McCall's Victory. 


turning to the frightened woman, “ will ye have the 
gudeness to tak’ down yon big Bible from yonder 
nuik, or to let me do so, mysel * ? ” 

Kate McCall clasped her hands. “Ah! Mr. 
Guthrie, another hour, please, sir. The Father will 
know the sore stress of minutes ye are in. Or — if 
you will e’en spend some of the precious moments in 
reading the Word, I have here another Bible ; it is 
smaller, but methinks thy sight is good.” 

“Aye, nigh good enough to tempt me, you may 
soon think, to try if I canna see through a stone wall,” 
was the half-laughing answer given by the stern 
mouth, as the minister put aside the small volume 
proffered him, and crossed over to where the great 
one he had pointed at lay bedded in a niche in the 
wall. His companions followed him with heavy- 
hearted submission, but as he reached up his hand to 
draw the book forth he turned half-round to them 
again, with a face set enough now once more to 
seriousness, as he said : 

“ Friends, ye do me na mair than justice when you 
credit me with placing esteem for the Words of the 
Lord aboon personal peril. But since there is 
here no present question of teaching precious 
truths to perishing souls I will leave the reading 
for a mair convenient season, and mak’ an effort 
to save my body out o’ the hands o’ Satan’s 
emissaries.” 

So saying he pulled out of the niche the large 
volume of the Scriptures, a couple of Psalm-books, 


" Minister of the Gospel at Stirling .” 77 


and a tattered copy of the old disused Scottish 
Liturgy. Then passing his palm over the wall at 
the back he pressed a secret spring, and to the 
astonishment of the others a small door flew inwards, 
leaving space enough for a person to pass through 
into a long, narrow chamber lying between the room 
occupied by Mistress McCall and the outer wall of 
the house. 

James Guthrie lost no further time in scrambling 
through into this hiding-place, of which William 
Blair’s grandfather had told him in his boyhood. 
Ten minutes later it was furnished with blankets, a 
table, chair, lamp, and food, and the secret door had 
scarcely been shut and the books replaced when the 
clatter of horses’ hoofs in the yard, and the noise of 
voices, announced the arrival of the party who had 
been sent out on the search for the bold-spoken and 
obnoxious minister. 

Standing on scant ceremony the strangers pushed 
their way into the house and penetrated to its 
mistress’s presence. 

“ Good-day to you, dame,” began the officer in 
command with an air of arrogant familiarity that 
made Blair clench his hands with indignation. 

“ Good-day to you,” he repeated, as he went 
striding about the apartment, peering into the cup- 
boards and bureaus. 

“Good-day to you,” returned the lady, striving 
to hide her deep agitation under an outward show 
pf gentle dignity. “May I demand to know what 


78 


Graham McCalls Victory . 


right or reason ye have, sir, for thus intruding into 
my quiet dwelling-place, and for overlooking in 
such a manner my few poor possessions ? ” 

The rough soldier laughed insolently — “ Poor you 
may well style them, dame. You need be under no 
apprehension for their safety, I assure you. By my 
faith, there is not the greediest rascal of my troop 
would care to be burdened with them at a gift. We 
seek other goods than these — something better of 
a prize.” 

“I fear then you will have come to a wrong — «** 
began Kate McCall, but the officer shortly in- 
terrupted her. 

“ Maybe, maybe. But we will go our own way to 
work to find out whether we have come to the wrong 
house or not, before we leave. We are hunting up 
that pestilent fellow and arch rebel, a certain 
Reverend James Guthrie, well known in these parts 
we are informed, and we have received information 
leading us to believe that he may have sought 
concealment here.” 

As he spoke the officer stood close before Mistress 
McCall, keenly scanning her countenance the while, 
and as she felt her eyelids trembling, and her colour 
wavering beneath the searching gaze, she deemed it 
safer to acknowledge a portion of the truth than 
to attempt to be wholly silent. Folding her hands 
tightly the one within the other she forced herself 
to look up and face her interrogator, as she replied 
to the implied question ; 


“ Minister of the Gospel at Stirling ! } 79 


“ The holy, Godfearing minister of the kirk in 
Stirling, the Reverend James Guthrie, hath indeed 
been lately here. Famished and worn with long 
fasting and long journeying he came here, where 
he was secure of a welcome^ And he hath received 
both rest and refreshment in this very room. May 
the all-merciful Father be praised that he had left 
it before you came, and that I am spared the 
suffering of seeing him carried off a prisoner before 
my eyes. May the Lord have him in His keeping 
wherever He hath led his steps.” 

The unwelcome intruder swore a passionate oath. 
“ If the troublesome blabber and sedition-monger be 
not soon in my keeping it shall be the worse for the 
district that harbours him, I warrant you that, my 
worthy dame. And so, where think you he may be 
harboured now ? ” 

“Where think I he may be harboured now!” 
echoed the lady with a curling lip, and an accent 
of contemptuous scorn in the usually sweet voice. 
“ Count the homes for ten miles around Stirling, 
aye, every shepherd’s shieling and ploughman’s cot ; 
then you may have some notion, perchance, of the 
number of the places wherein might lie sheltered 
the beloved friend and revered minister, James 
Guthrie. Ah ! truly the Lord giveth the very holes 
of the rocks, the thickness of the heather, the dark 
cover of the night, for harbours of refuge for — ” 

But the uninvited visitor waited to hear no more. 
Effectually misled by Kate McCall’s clever manage- 


8o 


Graham McCall's Victory . 


ment, and reminded by her allusion to the night 
that its darkness was as a fact now falling, to the 
rendering of the scarcely-known road not a little 
dangerous for horsemen, the commander bestowed 
another oath upon his fruitless expedition, and led 
his troop away again from the precincts of Blair’s 
Farm. 

For that time the hidden minister was safe. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

DARK TIMES. 


HE first of June, 1661. Mist-loving Scot- 
land of the purple hills, the glowing 
heather, and the multitudinous shadows, 
clouds, and changing tints, had robed 
herself in her fairest green, her loveliest skies, her 
sunniest smiles. Her roads gleamed white and 
bright, as they stretched away over hill and dale, 
and beside the sparkling burns. 

A very gala day one might have declared that 
happy-looking first of June, and with the firm, clear 
roads, and sunlit mountain-sides inviting all who 
had hearts to answer to sweet influences to take it 
for a holiday. 

Alas! It is for those who are happy to make 
holiday, not for those who are sad ; and there was 
a great throb of pain felt far and wide in the land 
of the North that summer day, in spite of the spirit 
that was abroad breathing joy. 

The Marquis of Argyle had been beheaded in the 

F 



82 


Graham McCall's Victory . 


High Street of Edinburgh but four days since, and 
to-day that “ minister of the Gospel at Stirling ” and 
at many another spot to which he travelled, that 
active, eager minister, James Guthrie, was to die. 

Have a few words of history here, that you may 
the better understand the causes of these dreary 
tragedies. 

After King Charles the Second was once fairly 
seated on his father’s throne the English Parliament 
set to work, as quickly as possible, to pass “ an Act of 
Indemnity for the protection of the large class of 
persons who had done acts of choice, or necessity, 
capable of any day bringing them within the letter 
of the law of high treason.” 

That was a very wise and prudent move, you see, 
on the part of the English, but the poor Scots did 
not manage so well. They had to wait for the 
meeting of the Estates before their Indemnity Act 
could be settled, and meanwhile a few unfortunate 
individuals could be picked out, who were obnoxious 
from one cause or another, and made victims of; 
since there was no law as yet to which they could 
appeal for protection. 

The Marquis of Argyle was the first one selected. 
You could never possibly guess one principal reason 
why he was to be put to death ; no, not if I gave you 
a month of Mondays to do it in, so I may as well 
tell you first as last. 

It was chiefly the Marquis of Argyle’s power and 
influence that had restored the throne to the Stuart 


Dark Times . 


83 


King, and, seeing that he was powerful enough to 
help a king to obtain possession of a kingdom, of 
course nobody could deny that he might very 
probably be also powerful enough to deprive a 
king of it again, if he should ever happen to wish 
to do so. 

Humph ! A very uncomfortable thought that was, 
certainly. People stronger than yourself may be 
very delightful to have for friends, if they can get 
you something you wish for but cannot get for your- 
self. But, when you have possession of the desirable 
object, no doubt you would just a trifle prefer that 
stronger person’s absence to his company, if the 
thought came into your mind that he was likely to 
want your treasure himself. 

Be that as it may, however, with regard to you, 
it was certainly so with King Charles the Second ; 
and, adding to coward fear base ingratitude, he seized 
upon every possible pretext he could think of, or 
those about him could suggest, for the gratification 
of his purpose. He let the unsuspicious nobleman 
travel to London to pay his respects in all good faith 
to the new Sovereign, because it was ever so much 
easier to make a snatch at him in the English Metro- 
polis than while he was in his own fine castle of 
Inverary. Then he had him taken and clapped 
into the Tower for a few days, till it was convenient 
to return him in a war-ship to his own country as 
a prisoner, and lodge him in Edinburgh Castle. 

On the 13th of February, 1661, he was formally 

F 2 


8 4 


Graham McCall's Victory. 


accused before the Estates of High Treason, and 
in the spring time following, on that 27th of May, 
“he met his end with a firmness and calm dignity 
which has won for him a high place in the narratives 
of Scots heroism.” 

I give you that last sentence about poor Argyle 
in the hope that it may take the bad taste out of 
your mouth for you, of what goes before. For 
myself the disgraceful episode has a flavour as bad 
as that of a bit of cake mixed with a bad egg, and 
perhaps you may be unlucky enough some day to 
find out that that is anything but nice, as I have 
done. 

Well, Argyle was beheaded on the High Street 
of that most beautiful of cities. On the very same 
day insult was added to injury by the passing of an 
Act for the restitution and re-establishment of the 
ancient government of the Church, by archbishops 
and bishops ; and then the executioners were all 
ready to add another black day to that first one. 

“ It was determined to have another representative 
victim, and to take him from the Church. James 
Guthrie was selected.” 

The chief of the reasons why he was selected, I 
have already told you, was because he was a ring- 
leader in drawing up that imperious “ Supplication 
because he was one of the foremost of the daring 
“Remembrancers” to His Majesty of those extorted 
promises as to Covenant-keeping, etcetera, which 
His Majesty wished to forget. 


Dark Times . 


85 


But just to show you what manner of man this 
was, this Minister, James Guthrie. As Burton says, 
to give you some impression of his restless energy, 
and at the same time of the fervid natures, the 
indomitable resolution and industry, of the staunch 
Covenanters generally, I will give you the passage 
narrating some of the charges against Guthrie, given 
by that graphic historian. 

“ He did contrive, complot, counsel, consult, draw 
up, frame, invent, spread abroad, or disperse — speak, 
preach, declaim, or utter — divers and sundry vile 
seditions and treasonable remonstrances, declara- 
tions, petitions, instructions, letters, speeches, preach- 
ings, declamations, and other expressions tending to 
the vilifying and contemning, slander and reproach, 
of His Majesty, his progenitors, his person, Majesty, 
dignity, authority, prerogative royal, and government.” 

There ! If that is not enough to take any one’s 
breath away, I don’t know what is. And remember, 
these charges are only some of those brought against 
the culprit ! As they stand they might have been 
thought enough to crush the head of even this eager, 
earnest, hot-tempered, outspoken James Guthrie him- 
self, without recourse being further added to the 
headsman’s axe. 

More folks than you and I would think that 
now-a-days, and act upon it, too. But in that dreary 
year of Covenant-burning, and perjured bishop- 
making, it was ruled otherwise. 

James Guthrie had a kind of forcible eloquence. 


86 


Graham McCall's Vic lory. 


based in part upon strong convictions, and in part 
upon a natural talent, that carried along with him 
a considerable number of those who came within 
reach of his influence ; and so James Guthrie was 
hunted, caught, and must die, bright though the earth 
and air and sky might be, and emphatic though a 
Saviour’s words might be : 

“By this shall all men know that ye are my 
disciples, if ye have love one to another.” 

Perhaps the Christians of the 17th century did not 
read the First Epistle General of the Apostle John. 
There is a verse in it that might be written up as 
a living sermon, at the street-corners of the cities of 
all countries naming themselves after Christ. Its 
warning of the want of light might serve as a lamp to 
find it by. 

“He that hateth his brother is in darkness, and 
walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he 
goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes.” 





CHAPTER IX. 

A MYSTERIOUS VISITOR. 

VIE alone, and with a most sad face, sat 
in his mother’s favourite sitting-room. At 
least, I said alone, but he had one faithful 
companion in the beautiful collie which 
William had left yesterday in charge of the place ; 
a most sagacious guardian of the homestead and the 
boy, although he could neither write nor read, nor 
speak anything but his own dog language. 

Poor Wallace spoke that now most pathetically, 
with an occasional slow, heavy wag of his tail, and 
the solemnly pitiful look in his great soft brown 
eyes. 

A dog is not at all a bad friend to have in seasons 
of trouble. It cannot torture you with words, and 
its sympathy is so unselfish and unmistakably sincere. 
But a dog cannot sound the depths of sorrow, and 
on that morning of the ist of June, to which we 
referred in the last chapter, Ivie McCall’s heart was 
as heavy as it is possible for so young a boy’s heart 


88 


Graham. McCall's Victory. 


to be. And that is saying a great deal more than 
some people in their extraordinary ignorance or still 
more extraordinary forgetfulness imagine. 

But now to explain how those two came to be each 
other’s only companions that day. Mistress McCall 
and William Blair had done their best to save James 
Guthrie’s life, and when it came to pass that he was 
to die they did their utmost to prove their devotion 
to their minister to the last. No personal fears were 
allowed to hinder them from standing boldly forth 
as his supporters, and no sooner had the widow learnt 
the fixed date of his execution than she set off for 
Edinburgh. 

Early in the morning of the 28th, old Elspeth 
Spence had astonished the inmates of Blair’s Farm 
by presenting herself before them as the bearer of 
bad tidings. 

“ How have ye come? and why have ye come?” 
asked her brother-in-law, almost doubting his senses 
as he looked at her. 

And well he might, for since the affray in St. 
Giles’s, on account of the new Service-Book, in the 
year ’35, it was doubtful if she had walked above 
two miles at any time away from her own door. 
But strong excitement had at last given her inclin- 
ation for a journey, as well as strength to perform it. 

“ I ha’ coom upon my feet,” she said, with a gleam 
of triumph showing for a moment through her 
grimness. " Not an hour had passed that Argyle’s 
head was reived fra’ his body, and that our Covenant 


A Mysterious Visitor. 


89 


— Hech ! the villains, that they daured the deed ! — 
that our Covenant was burned by the common hang- 
man o’ malefactors, than I was telled the news, and 
mair than that — James Guthrie is to have the same 
fate three days after this, for standing to it that a vow 
is a vow, an’ that the Covenant is a fast bond on 
those that took it, which none may loose.” 

Ivie lifted horror-stricken eyes to her — “ The same 
fate ! ” he repeated fearfully. “ Do you mean that 
he is to be burnt ? ” 

The old woman turned and glowered down upon 
him in a way that made him shrink back. She 
chuckled malevolently as she answered the question. 

“ No, laddie. He is no to be brent. They keep the 
burrning for the Covenant they ha’ made wi’ the 
Lord, and for ugly old women whom it pleases them 
to misca’ witches. The Covenanted Minister is to 
have his head chopped afif, and it’s to be made a gey 
fine ornament for ane o’ the braw buildings i’ Edinbro, 
if—” 

And upon that word “if” she made so sudden a 
pause that all her three auditors were as startled by 
the unlooked-for silence as they would have been by 
some unexpected shriek. 

Again the old woman indulged in her unearthly, 
unmirthful chuckle. Even with every nerve in her 
body quivering with excitement, and her mental 
faculties wrought to the highest pitch, she could still 
enjoy the spiteful and fantastic pleasure of playing 
upon other people’s nerves and feelings. On most 


9 ° 


Graham McCall's Victory. 


occasions she would prolong the amusement indefin- 
itely, until the more superstitious of her neighbours 
really did believe she must have entered into some 
black compact with the powers of evil, to enable her 
to guess so closely how to annoy them most effect- 
ually ; and some of the more irritable took little more 
care than she did herself as to associating the ominous 
word witch with her name. 

However, at the present moment Elspeth Spence 
had a far deeper motive in her sharp pause than to 
tease the curiosity of her audience, and checking 
her laugh she raised a long, lean forefinger as added 
emphasis to her speech, while she subdued her shrill 
tones to a hollow mutter, and repeating her last 
words, went on : 

‘‘Aye! James Guthrie’s heid will e’en girn doon 
upo’ the citizens o’ Edinbro’, sightless, dumb an’ 
deaf, for mony a lang day, if those wha call themsels 
his freends dinna win him awa’ fra’ his bluidthirsty 
enemies, before they work their will on him. And 
noo’ Elspeth Spence has said her say she will e’en 
gae her ways back to the one wha gied her a timely 
warning to say it.” 

“That would be the Reverend Mr. Welch?” said 
William Blair, half as assertion, and half question. 

His sister-in-law put her arms akimbo, craned her 
neck forward till her face was within a couple of 
feet of his, and drew her eyelids together, sort of 
alligator fashion, until between them there was just 
visible one long, brilliant slit of eye, which gave 


A Mysterious Visitor. 91 

a most peculiarly keen, cunning expression to her 
countenance. 

“ That wad be what ye wad think, would it ? ” she 
retorted in a tone of aggravating sarcasm. “ And 
suppose I should say, that would na’ be the Reverend 
Mr. Welch, what then?” 

If William had done quite what he felt inclined 
to do, the “ What then ? ” would have been a good 
shaking administered to the one who asked it. But 
unfortunately for the gratification of that pardonable 
longing there were three things against it — First, 
she was a woman ; secondly, she was old ; thirdly, she 
had put herself to the very great fatigue of a day 
and night’s tramp to bring them these tidings of 
great, sad interest. 

No ; on all these counts, and others, he could not 
shake her, not even though she persistently baffled 
all attempts of his own, and of Kate McCall, to 
learn who had been her informant as to the dismal 
events past and to come in Edinburgh. For her 
own malicious gratification she let them discover 
that there was a mystery attached to the affair, and 
that was all. 

But with regard to one thing, Mistress McCall 
did get the better of an argument with Elspeth. 
The old woman declared her intention to set out 
at once on her backward route, the lady declared 
her contrary intention of making her remain until 
she had taken both rest and a good meal. And 
the sight of the tempting repast that was speedily 


92 


Graham McCall's Victory. 


spread upon the table eventually helped the lady to 
win the day. 

Elspeth fell to upon the food with a wolfish voracity 
that made her companions doubly thankful that they 
had insisted upon giving a meal to such a famishing 
creature. But truth to tell, her greed was due quite 
as much to the rough habits of her long solitude as 
to hunger ; and the frugal Scotch appetite was satisfied 
just where an English working-woman would have 
felt comfortably settled to the occupation of eating. 

Having passed some hours in heavy slumber, Blair 
mounted her on horseback behind him, and carried 
her eight or ten miles on her homeward journey 
before they said good-bye. 

“ There,” he said, as he checked his horse at last. 
“ Now I think you may manage to get over the rest 
of the road somewhat mair easily than if ye had 
taen your ain will in returning the morn.” 

“ Humph,” grunted old Elspeth ; “ye’ve na call to 
go crowing over me. What I had undertaken I wad 
ha’ made oot to perform. But I’ll no gainsay that 
the mother o’ your pet chick, Maister Ivie yon, 
gave me a toothsome denner.” 

Blair laughed. “Aye, I believe you. You shall 
never ha’ had such another since ye were foster- 
mother to that bairn, the cousin I hear tell he is, 
o’ our new Lord High Commissioner and Governor 
of Edinburgh Castle, John, Earl Middleton. Did ye 
e’er see your foster-child, by the bye, since he grew tq 
man’s estate ? ” 


A Mysterious Visitor. 


93 


There was a short pause before the reply came : 
“ Maybe, if he cooms whiles ben to Scotland I may 
ha’ seen him, wha shall say ? ” 

If her companion’s surmises, with regard to a 
recent subject of discussion, had lain in any degree 
in the right direction, the slight hesitation and the 
constrained manner of the reply, when it was given 
at last, might have furnished a clue to the reading 
of a riddle. As it was, William Blair observed 
nothing more than his sister-in-law’s usual chariness 
of speech and grumpiness of disposition, and having 
dismounted her, and listened with what degree of 
patience he could muster to some crabbed messages 
for his wife, he vaulted into the saddle again, and 
rode back to Blair’s farm. 

The night was far advanced when he reached home 
to find his wife and Mistress McCall together, and 
in their turn busy in preparations for a journey. 
Well he guessed whither it was to be taken, and the 
following day the three set off in company to the 
Scotch metropolis, determined, that whatever others 
might do, they at least would take care that the 
honoured minister should not be left quite alone 
in the midst of enemies in his last hours upon 
earth. 

“ Ah ! if we could but rescue him ! ” sobbed Mary 
Blair. 

Her husband’s compressed lips, and hands clenched 
till the veins stood out upon their backs like ropes, 
told as well as speech could have done that it 


94 


Graham McCall's Victory . 


would not be his will that should be wanting in the 
affair. 

Kate McCall’s tears were falling for mingled 
reasons as she turned in the moment of leaving, and 
cast her arms around her child’s neck. 

“ May the Father of the fatherless hold ye in His 
safe keeping, my child, my darling,” she murmured 
through her weeping. 

The boy clung to her closely. “ Take me with you, 
my mother,” he whispered imploringly. “What you 
are strong for I too will be strong to bear.” 

But it might not be. If there were to be the 
desperate struggle of an attempted rescue, so young 
a boy could be of no use, and would be far better 
kept out of harm’s way till he were of an age to do 
brave deeds for the cause in which his father fell. 
And if — 

And she shuddered as the dreary thoughts crowded 
into her mind. If the worst were to come to the 
worst, three days hence, then most assuredly it would 
be well to keep him afar from sights so terrible. By 
a desperate effort the gentle-hearted woman regained 
control over her emotions, and lifting herself up she 
said tenderly : 

“ No, my son, my darling, do not urge me to act 
with want of wisdom. I go to give my open testimony 
of adherence to our minister, and to his opinions, in so 
far as I may rightly comprehend them. For you, thy 
day to do so is not yet come. I have committed thee 
to the Lord’s keeping for me until I return, and He 


A Mysterious Visitor. 


95 


hath never yet failed those that trust in Him. And 
so, yet again beseeching the Almighty’s blessing upon 
thee, my son, I bid thee a brief farewell.” 

“ It is but a brief one, dear Maister Ivie muttered 
William Elair, stepping back a moment from the 
horse’s side, in his effort to add his word of comfort 
for his favourite. 

But the period of time that doubtless seemed short 
enough to James Guthrie, awaiting his nearly approach- 
ing execution, in the dungeon of Edinburgh Castle, 
where it stands in its lofty picturesqueness, overlook- 
ing the fair city, appeared to Ivie to stretch onwards to 
a distance that made his mental eyes ache to follow it. 

Many a lad has thought that Robinson Crusoe’s lot 
was the most enviable it was possible to imagine, 
but they would soon find a very few weeks of his 
desolate experiences enough to satisfy their fancies 
in that direction. A fortnight of utter loneliness would 
make you welcome with the wildest fling of your cap, 
and the most frantic shout of delight, even “ that 
cricketing duffer who can neither bat nor bowl,” or 
“ that awful muff who always stands shivering on the 
bank for an hour, before he manages to squeeze up a 
farthing’sworth of courage to jump in.” 

Ivie felt terribly downcast and “eerie”, as the 
Scotch expressive word pictures it, as he turned back 
into the empty house. For all his manliness and 
superior abilities, he was but ten years old, and he 
had four days, at any rate, to get through as he best 
might, alone. 


9 6 


Graham McCall's Victory. 


He stood for awhile staring away over the moor, 
across the wide wastes of which his mother and her 
companions had passed out of his sight. There was 
a soft touch against his hand, and looking down he 
met the dog’s wistful gaze up at him. A smile of 
thankfulness shone through his tears. 

“ Poor old Wallace ! ” he said. “ How come you 
here ? I thought you had gone too ? ” 

Wallace rested his nose against the caressing hand 
and wagged his tail in a subdued way. He did his 
best to explain the state of the case, and it was not 
his fault, but the poor ignorant human creature’s mis- 
fortune, if he was not understood. The simple fact 
was, that he had gone with his master, but William 
Blair’s cogitations upon the young laird’s dreary situa- 
tion had led him to the happy thought of ordering his 
dog back, for the double purposes of protection and 
companionship ; and Ivie’s mother was grateful enough 
for the deed, whatever her son might be. 

But even with Wallace to wander about with, and 
with Wallace to talk to, and to share his porridge with, 
and oatmeal cake, by the time the dread 1st of June 
had arrived Wallace’s companion was as heartsick 
with loneliness, and with apprehension for the safety 
of those he loved, as the morning was beautiful. The 
sunny sky and the bright glow of light upon the 
mountain sides so jarred with his sorrowful feelings, 
that after the earliest hours of the morning he instinct- 
ively kept altogether within doors, and as the day 
wore on he even avoided the windows, shrouding his 


A Mysterious Visitor . 


97 


sad face in the darkest parts of the house, until twilight 
should put on her chastened tints to sympathize with 
that day’s sad doings. 

It was already growing dusk when sympathetic 
Wallace, who had been lying stretched at McCall’s 
feet, perfectly motionless and wide awake for a couple 
of hours past, suddenly lifted his head, and gave a low 
growl. With an eager start of hope that, in spite of 
the dog’s growl, his mother might be at hand, Ivie 
dropped his hands from his head, and sprang to the 
door. He could get no farther. The doorway was 
blocked up by the very tall and broad figure of a man 
who almost completely filled the narrow space with 
his giant form. 

Wallace lay down before the living barricade with 
bent head, lying stretched between that and the boy 
he had been ordered thither to guard. 



a 



CHAPTER X. 

A VENICE FLASK OF PERFUME. 

O rescue was possible. Things had been too 
carefully arranged, too much forethought 
in providing against possible contingencies 
had been displayed, and there was still glow- 
ing too much enthusiastic affection for the King of a 
year’s reign, to give any chance of success to the 
handful of those who would have adventured their 
lives willingly to save that of their minister. They 
might have sacrificed themselves, of course, if they 
had so chosen, by way of displaying their zeal in 
his cause, but they were too wise to act with mere 
vain foolishness. James Guthrie himself would have 
been the most indignant at such waste of good Cove- 
nanters, and the loudest in denouncing such mad folly, 
on the part of those whom he spent his last hours in 
exhorting to remembrance that they were the salt of 
the earth, and that they were those who were bound 
to keep alive the strong light of the gospel of truth 
which had been committed to their charge. 

By favour, extended to them through some unknown 



A Venice Flask of Perfume. 


99 


channel, Mistress McCall and her companions were 
secretly admitted to an hour’s converse with the con- 
demned man on the night of the 31st of May. As 
Mary Blair entered the dungeon a gleam of hope 
flushed her face, and the heavy door was scarcely 
closed when she darted to the prisoner’s side, tearing 
off the plaid wrapped about her face and shoulders as 
she did so. 

“ Change with me, sir, and you can escape ! ” she 
muttered hurriedly, as she flung down the plaid at his 
feet, and prepared to unfasten the loopings of her 
upper skirt to lengthen it. But whether in her excite- 
ment her words were uttered more loudly than she 
had intended, or whether her actions were observed, 
and rightly interpreted, neither she nor her companions 
knew, when they were stricken dumb and still by a 
voice, they knew not whence, muttering in tones that 
were scarcely audible : 

“It is useless. You are watched. When he might 
have got free he refused. It is too late now.” 

Whilst Mary Blair, her husband, and the widow, 
stood petrified, gazing at each other, the prisoner 
replied in tones low as those in which the women had 
been so mysteriously addressed ; — 

“ Ay ! Too late now for aught but a swift passage 
from the weight of mortality to a glorious im- 
mortality. Too late now for aught but a speedy 
flight into the glorious presence of the Lamb of 
God, the one and only Head of His Church, and 
my Redeemer.” 


IOO 


Graham McCall's Victory. 


For a full minute there was an awed silence in the 
dim prison-cell. It was broken at last by Mary Blair. 
Even this human life was a sweet gift of God to be 
duly treasured, in her estimation, and there was an 
accent of something akin to reproach mingling 
with her deference as she resumed her plaid, and 
murmured : 

“Ah, sir, can it be true! Ye might have won 
to freedom, freedom to proclaim the Word o’ the 
Lord again to the hungering sheep, and ye refused ? ” 

The fiery impetuosity of the strict Covenanter, 
which had carried him once and again in times past 
within the border land of blind fanaticism, was 
subdued to a diviner spirit now that he was close to 
the valley of the shadow of death. During these 
past weeks he had been standing aside on life’s 
pathway. The fever and turmoil of intercourse with 
his fellow-man was amongst the bygone things, his 
communing now was with the Spirit of God, the 
Comforter, who shall abide with those, who love the 
Lord, for ever. 

It almost seemed to the Blairs and to Mistress 
McCall as though some other than their own well- 
known minister spoke to them, when James Guthrie 
raised his penetrating eyes to Mary Blair, and 
answered her with a serious gentleness that went 
to his hearers’ hearts : 

“ It is true, my friend, that ye say, that I might 
ha’ won to freedom i’ this world, and that I refused. 
For I must have won to that poor, perishing freedom 


A Venice Flask of Perfume. i of 


through the slavery o’ a lie. And as it is too late 
now for aught but rejoicing, with joy unspeakable, at 
the nigh prospect of being for ever with the Lord, so 
is it also far too early, methinks, for one to win this 
world’s goods by lying. We must enter the service 
of another master if we would have a time come for 
doing that. But, mind ye, my dear, dear friends, and 
all ye who can hear me — ” 

And at those words he raised his voice — “ Mind ye, 
that master who gives away this world’s gifts as 
payment for lies, has for ane o’ his titles, ‘ Sin.’ And 
the last wages he pays is death. I will not, for my 
pairt, my brethren, to win those wages. It liketh me 
better that I choose eternal life.” 

As he ceased, that hushed and muffled voice that 
came from some undiscovered quarter, spoke again, 
and hurriedly: 

“ I did not fix upon the lie, by which to aid 
your escape, from choice, believe me. But by that 
road lay my only hope for your deliverance ; would 
that it had been otherwise ! I crave your final 
blessing and your prayers.” 

“You have them, my son,” breathed the minister. 

Kate McCall was quite unable to restrain her 
curiosity. Stooping low over James Guthrie she 
whispered : “ Who is it ? Who is thus mercifully 
anxious to befriend one whom others thus bar- 
barously condemn ?” 

But her curiosity was doomed to disappointment. 

“ I know not, for a certainty, who it may be,” 


102 


Graham McCall's Victory. 


replied Mr. Guthrie. “But were I forced to guess, 
methinks I would not be far oot if I said it was nane 
ither than — ” 

And at the critical moment, when he was about to 
pronounce the name, an interruption came that was 
final. The dungeon-door was flung open, and the 
visitors were hastily and peremptorily summoned to 
depart. No further leavetaking even was allowed. 

The morrow came, and found William Blair, and 
many another like-minded with himself, standing as 
near as was permitted them to the gallows upon 
which James Guthrie was to be hung. Elspeth 
Spence was also there, squabbling with the crowds 
in general, friends and foes alike, and earning for 
herself many a fierce reprimand, and more than one 
blow with the flat of a sword, for her loud denuncia- 
tions of the day’s proceedings, and the pusillanimity 
of those who pretended friendship for the victim, 
and yet did not fly at the throats of those others by 
whom he was to be done to death. 

One of the most imperative and stern rebukes 
she received was administered furtively, by a very 
giant of a man, young, and richly dressed, and 
evidently belonging to the party of the Government. 
Favoured by the confused masses of the people, and 
the constant surgings to and fro, he contrived with 
considerable difficulty to reach the side of the old 
virago, as though by accident, and to remain there 
long enough to mutter in angry remonstrance, and 
with the air of one well-known to her : 


A Venice Flask of Perfume. 103 

“ Hush ye, for a foolish old fool that you are ! You 
are endangering your own life, and more than that, 
bringing ridicule upon the cause for which yon man 
is about to die with such stern bravery.” 

What menaces and blows had not been able to 
effect, this man’s reproof instantly accomplished. 
The old woman assumed an almost cringing aspect 
as she perceived him by her side, and muttering in 
the most earnest entreaty : 

“ Ach ! dinna you speak harshly to me, I canna 
bear it, I will na speak anither worrd aboon my 
breath this day, I promise ; ” she fell humbly back 
on to the outskirts of the crowd. 

Somewhat further removed from the dismal m&lte 
and turmoil, Mistress McCall and Mary Blair waited 
for the tragic end, their frames convulsed with sobs, 
their weeping eyes hidden low in their handkerchiefs, 
within the screening plaids, which the lady as well 
as her attendant wore on the present occasion, closely 
folded about the head and face. 

The executioners having ascertained that their 
victim was dead, the body of James Guthrie was 
taken down from the gallows, and the rest of the 
sentence passed upon him was carried out, by his 
head being severed from his body with the heads- 
man’s axe. 

This was the dismal moment anxiously awaited 
by the numbers of weeping women in the concourse 
assembled at the minister’s death. Disregarding 
their natural feelings of horror and repugnance, they 


io4 


Graham McCall's Victory. 


pressed around the officers who had just performed 
their ghastly task, and dipped their tear-bedewed 
handkerchiefs in the flowing blood of the slain 
Covenanter. The Register, Sir Archibald Primrose, 
looked on with mocking scorn, and exclaimed with 
real or assumed indignation : 

“ How now, dames ! What is this I see ? For all 
your dread of Papistry, here are ye imitating one of 
the grossest pieces of the idolatry and superstition 
of the Romish Church, in its gathering of the relics 
of the saints.” 

A slim, graceful maiden close at hand, turned upon 
him with a grave and solemn dignity : 

“ Not so, sir. We guard this precious blood of the 
innocent, that it may be a remembrance of perpetual 
consolation to us, that right dear in the sight of the 
Lord is the blood of His saints.” 

So strong was the feeling of the populace now 
grown, on the side of admiration and regret for the 
bold and conscientious preacher, that it was found 
expedient to humour it so far as to permit his friends 
to have possession of the dismembered trunk, which 
they forthwith placed reverently in a coffin, and carried 
to the Old Kirk aisle. 

A number of ladies followed, all anxious to show 
the strength of their respect by sharing in the duties 
of preparing the body for its burial. 

Whilst they were thus engaged in these sad offices 
the door of the church opened, a tall, closely-en- 
wrapped figure stepped quickly in, closed the door 


A Venice Flask of Perfume. 105 

behind him as quickly, and hastened up the aisle, 
till he reached the spot where Mistress McCall stood 
with Mary Blair, folding the hands of the dead man 
reverently upon his breast. 

Without a word the new-comer held forth a rain- 
bow-hued crystal phial, long and thin, and with a 
curiously-formed gleaming stopper, which, when he 
drew out, permitted an exquisite perfume to escape, 
filling the whole building with its sweetness. 

One moment he waited, until the hands were finally 
composed, and then, with the same haste which had 
characterized all his movements, he poured the whole 
fragrant contents of the glass vessel over the mortal 
remains of James Guthrie, and turned to depart. 
Impulsively Kate McCall laid her fingers on his arm, 
looking upwards to the muffled face high above her of 
which even the dark grey eyes were scarcely visible. 

“ God bless you, sir ! ” she said, in her low, sweet 
voice. “ He will most surely bless you for this 
labour of love which you have shown to the slain 
body of a servant of Jesus Christ.” 

The stranger bent low in acknowledgment, and 
then gently disengaging himself from the detaining 
touch he made good his escape from the kirk, silent 
and undiscovered as he came. 

On the evening of the following day I vie McCall’s 
pale face and heavy eyes regained some portion of 
their wonted colour and brightness, when Wallace, 
after sitting up in an attitude of profound meditation 
for some minutes^ at last bounded on to his four feet 


io6 


Graham McCall's Victory . 


with a perfect scream of a bark, indulged in a series 
of jumps and gambols which he had considered far 
beneath his dignity for many a month past, as only 
suitable to the age of puppyhood, and finally dashed 
through the window, and helter-skelter across the 
yard, and over the low stone wall, tail flying in the 
air like a new kind of pennon as he scampered away 
over the moor, out of sight. 

Ivie’s lips parted with a smile, the first that had 
appeared on them for the space of five days. 

“William is very near at hand, that is sure,” he 
said sagaciously. He lifted the smouldering peats to 
lighten them, and let the air fan them into a hotter 
and more vivid glow ; he filled the porridge-kettle, that 
hung over them, placed upon the table spoons and 
basins and a great bowl-full of the new milk he had 
brought in an hour ago, put out a platter of oatcake, 
fetched new-laid eggs from the hen-house, and then, 
having made all the preparations that lay in his 
power for the comfort of the returning travellers, he 
considered himself justified in following Wallace’s 
example. Not, indeed, in the bounds and barks and 
gambols, but in popping out through the window, 
and in tearing across the heather, in the direction 
indicated by the dog, at a pace that may have led the 
small fry hidden in the flowery depths to imagine 
that the human fairy tale of seven-leagued boots was 
come true. 

The porridge had been made, the eggs cooked, and 
these, together with a goodly portion of the oatcake, 


A Venice Flask of Perfume. 107 


eaten, by the weary travellers who had not partaken 
of a regular meal since they had set out for Edinburgh. 

The whole of the little party, including Wallace 
of course, were now sitting resting in the spence, 
looking more comfortable, and greatly refreshed. 
Though how they can possibly have been so, with- 
out having had one single cup of tea even between 
them, I confess it utterly passes me to understand. 
Once tired, always tired to the end of one’s days, 
it seems to me, if it were without the bounds of 
possibility to get hold of a teapot filled with its 
legitimate contents, and piping hot. 

However, happily for the poor unfortunates of 
those centuries, no prescience told them of the enor- 
mous luxury to be enjoyed by their successors of a 
future age, and so they contrived to feel satisfied 
without it. 

But those remarks are only to fill up the time 
whilst Mistress McCall and the Blairs are waiting 
for Ivie’s return. 

“I have something for you, mother,” he had said 
a minute since, with sudden recollection and an air of 
mystery. “ But with the joy of having you at home 
again, I had forgotten it.” 

And with that he had run off to fetch this thing, 
whatever it might be. 

“ Some little paper he hath written for me, per- 
chance,” said the lady. “ But yet, if that were all, 
why the mysterious look and tone ? No. On second 
thoughts she did not believe in the likelihood of this 


io8 


Graham McCall's Victory . 


suggestion of hers, and her companions had not done 
so at all.” 

But there was short time for speculations. The 
boy came back holding his plaid bundled in his arms, 
with the object, whatever its nature, certainly not 
writings one would judge, evidently concealed within 
it. Crossing the room, he stood before his mother, 
and began gravely : 

“Ma’am, ye will not be knowing yet that I ha’ e’en 
had a visitor since you left for the city.” 

Kate McCall looked at her child with some slight 
surprise. “Aye, Ivie, that may be. Wayfarers are 
few and far between that come nigh this lonely spot, 
that is true. Still we are not wont to count it 
surpassing strange when one does approach our door. 
Ye forgot not the law of hospitality, I trust ?” 

At this unexpected question McCall’s eyelids sank 
for an instant, and his face flushed. He certainly had 
forgotten that law for once. 

“ But in very truth, mother,” he continued firmly 
the next moment, “ not only I, but ye yourself, I 
reckon, would have had your mind filled too full wi’ 
other thoughts yester night, to have room in it for 
every-day affairs. It was nigh past the gloaming 
when my visitor came. The chamber was o’er 
crowded wi’ thick shadows, as though ghaists were 
thronging to fill the places ye had so lang left empty. 
I had covered up mine eyes to shut them out. I was 
not wholly feared o’ the naughts, but yet, mother — ” 

His lips trembled, and kneeling down he laid his 


A Venice Flask of Perfume. 109 

bundle on the floor, and dropped arms and face into 
his mother’s lap. 

“Mother — I did know that the Lord was standing 
by, but — but — the time was fearsome. It was nigh 
ten o’ the night by the dying light, and I was sair 
tired, but I could na’ sleep— and oh! mither, mither, 
I did weary so for ye.” 

A tear dropped on the boy’s sunbrowned hand. A 
tender hand caressed his sunny hair. Five days’ 
solitary confinement has been known to quell even 
stout men’s hearts. It was not surprising that nearly 
a week of loneliness had told somewhat heavily upon 
the high-wrought susceptibilities of a young boy, 
living in times when those in the prime of age and 
intellect were not ashamed to believe in witches, 
warlocks, and all the rest of the miserable and 
mischievous delusions. 

To change the current of his memories, Mary Blair 
said cheerfully : l( No doubt, my bonny bairn, ye did 
weary for her, and so a good bairn should. But ye 
have her the noo, and we are a’ fain to hear what it is 
ye ha’ getten for her. Will ye no’ let us see it, and 
tell after how ye came by it ? ” 

That was a very artful suggestion of Mary Blair’s, 
for she pretty clearly divined that it was one that 
would not be at all welcome. His past fears and 
miseries dispelled by a present very vivid, but exceed- 
ingly harmless alarm, Ivie lifted his face again from 
his mother’s knees, and laid his hand qufckly 0“ r the 
plaid as he answered her ; 


1 IO 


Graham McCall’ s Victory, 


“ Nay, nay, Mary. It will pleasure me rather to 
tell ye my tale first, and show ye the braw giftie 
I have hidden intil this, afterwards. And, mother 
dear, it was no’ just a wayfarer, so to be called, was 
my visitor, neither, nor in need o’ any hospitality that 
I could offer him. He was a grand man, young 
and pleasant-looking, though wi’ a touch maybe o’ 
haughtiness in his face, so much as I could see of it 
through the darkness.” 

“ Did you find him in the yard, dear ? ” asked his 
mother. 

Ivie shook his head vigorously, and turning, pointed 
his finger at the room-door behind him. “ That is 
where I found him. And how and when he came 
there, I cannot tell. Wallace just gave one wee 
bittie growl, mair like as though to warn me, than as 
if he were onyways angered. And I took my face 
oot my hands, and looked where Wallace looked, and 
I saw him. A’ the doorway was just filled wi’ him. 
It seemed to ha’ grown a mere wee bit slit, like as 
when Dame Elspeth Spence screwed up her eyelids 
yon morn, till only a narrow line o’ her eyes showed 
through. The door-way was too narrow for him, 
and too low for him. He was tall — so tall — and his 
shoulders broader even than William’s, but thinner- 
like. And he smiled till I thought o’ the sun-ripples 
in the burn, when he stooped low, low down, and said : 
‘ Go^jj old Wallace, good old guardian, take care 
of him till his mother comes back, and his friend 
William..’ ” 


A Venice Flask of Perfume . 


hi 


At this point in the history there burst forth such a 
tumult of wonder and questionings, from all the three 
listeners, that it seemed as though the narrators 
breath would all be exhausted before he got a chance 
to end it. But, however, the questionings did come 
to a finish at last, when it became fully evident that 
Ivie could give them no more satisfactory replies 
than that : 

“ Yes ; the mysterious stranger-guest did evidently 
know Wallace, and something at least of Wallace’s 
master, and of the other inmates of Blair’s Farm. 
And he thought it was equally evident that Wallace 
knew something of the stranger.” 

But how much either knew of the other he could 
not say, neither did the stranger tell him who he was, 
where he came from, nor even his name. 

“ He only gave me this,” wound up Ivie, at length 
opening his package with the greatest care, and 
taking out a beautiful, many-hued crystal phial. 
“ He gave me this, and told me it was for my mother, 
And that I was to say to her — ‘ The giver thought 
she might value it, in remembrance of that day, and 
that he would she should guard it carefully, as it 
might prove of use to me, should I ever be led to 
follow in my father’s footsteps, and perchance come 
to need a friend.’ He made me repeat the words 
thrice, as though he misdoubted my memory. And 
then, while I turned to place the wee bit bottle on 
yonder shelf, as he bade me, he was gone.” 

Mistress McCall scarcely heard the concluding 


1 12 


Graham McCall's Victory . 


words. The phial in one hand, its curiously- 
twisted engraved stopper in the other, she sat 
as though she were in a trance. The Blairs ap- 
peared to be equally spell-bound, and the subtle 
aroma of some exquisite foreign perfume filled the 
whole room. There was no mistaking that phial, nor 
the peculiar fragrance it still emitted, although the 
content^ had been poured more than thirty-six hours 
ago upon the headless body of James Guthrie, as it 
lay, safe at last from all pain, at peace from all rest- 
less indignations and anxieties, in a coffin placed in 
the aisle of the Old Kirk in Edinburgh. 

Why the flask had been brought to Blair’s Farm, 
and given into the keeping of Mistress McCall, 
remained a secret which that wondering little 
company had to trust that the future might 
reveal. 

Each in turn twisted it about in their hands, as 
though they imagined that by the superlatively strong 
exercise of their wishes glass might be taught to 
speak, and prevailed upon to tell all it knew about 
its late owner. But telephones were not invented 
then, much less talking-bottles possessed of powers 
for satisfying curiosity. And so the mysterious gift 
was put away at last, with a sigh, amongst the lady’s 
few cherished treasures that remained to her after the 
despoiling of her home. And few indeed they were. 
She had lost her husband, and all worldly gear in the 
cause of the Covenant and the King. Had she lost 
them on the King’s account only she might now have 


A Venice Flask of Perfume. 113 

obtained restitution. But there was little chance for 
her to find favour at Court, when her plea lay chiefly 
in this, that her husband had held fast to the king 
because he was a Covenanted King. 

Gladly would that same Covenanted King have 
got hold of the copy of the Covenant which bore his 
signature, if he could have discovered its where- 
abouts ; and gladly would he have banished to the 
antipodes all those who had any hand, direct or indi- 
rect, in forcing him to sign it. 

To be welcomed as King by his Scotch subjects, 
that was agreeable enough to this second Charles. 
But even already, in these early days, men had dis- 
covered very fully that one of the best ways to win 
hatred and hard usage from him, was to remind him, 
by word or deed, that he had held the affections and 
good offices of his northern subjects by the subter- 
fuge of a pretended adherence and devotion to that 
Covenant which his easy-going, pleasure-loving 
nature abhorred. 

One of the most earnest of his mentors had been 
Graham McCall, and he had died on the battle-field. 
Another, far sterner, had been James Guthrie, and 
his head was now spiked on the nether Bow Port. 
Mistress McCall clasped her child tight, and shud- 
dered as she thought of what might further befall. 


H 



CHAPTER XI. 

THE NEW BISHOP OF DUNBLANE. 

HE night of the 15th of December, 1661. 
A room in a London house, dimly lighted, 
and scarcely warmed by a low, smouldering 
fire. 

But the one occupant of the apartment was neither 
conscious of the cold nor of the darkness, as he knelt 
beside a table with his head buried in his hands. 

It was upon the stroke of midnight, and he had 
been kneeling thus ever since he had been able to 
effect his escape from the company of his entertainers, 
between eight and nine o’clock. He was praying 
with a fervency none can understand but those who 
have passed through some great and terrible crisis in 
their life. 

That day of December had been made notable in 
the two kingdoms of Great Britain by the ordination, 
in the splendid Abbey of Westminster, of an Arch- 
bishop, and three Bishops, ordained to St. Andrews, 
and other sees in Scotland. The ceremonies had been 



The New Bishop of Dunblane . 1 1 5 


gone through with all pomp and splendour of page- 
antry that was possible. Some touches of more than 
ordinary ostentatious magnificence had been added, 
partly, perchance, to pleasure the arrogant and sump- 
tuous tastes of the renegade Covenanter — James 
Sharp — the new Primate for the North. And partly 
also, no doubt, in stern scorn of the Presbyterians’ 
horror and dismay, at the infliction upon them of the 
hated and ceremonious Prelacy, whose names and 
forms they abhorred so utterly, not only for them- 
selves, but as certain forerunners, according to their 
rooted belief, of the dark errors and miseries of the 
Papacy. 

The consecrations over, congratulations, equally 
weighted as the ceremonies had been with double 
purposes, poured in upon the new prelates. The 
Archbishop and his fierce colleague, Fairfoul, Bishop 
of Glasgow, received all civilities, graciousnesses, and 
obsequiousnesses, with lifted heads, proud smiles, and 
the air of accepting them as matters of course and 
their due. But with one of their brethren it was far 
otherwise. 

Robert Leighton, the new Bishop of Dunblane, 
was noticeable, even in that scholarly and polished 
gathering, for his ample forehead, and for the noble 
refinement that marked his face. Just now there was 
a deeper and more earnest expression in his eyes 
than was even their wont. One of his English com- 
peers went up to him with outstretched arm and words 
of greeting. 


H 2 


Graham McCall's Victory . 


1 16 


“ All hail to you, my brother Bishop. Allow me to 
offer you the right hand of fellowship.” 

Robert Leighton lifted his own, and laid it in the 
other’s palm ; and replied in tones that rang through 
the group gathered around him. 

“ Gladly do I accept the fellowship, my brother, as 
I do that of all Christians. For one is our Master, 
even Christ, and all we are brethren ; with Him for 
our Lord, so long as we humbly seek grace to do His 
will.” 

Almost it might have been supposed that the 
Christian words contained something nauseous in 
them, or a poisoned sting, with such a mingling of 
disgust and haste did the Englishman release the 
fingers which he had just clasped, and retreat to 
more congenial companions. 

There were qjany good Christians in England in 
those days, never think otherwise, but the circum- 
stances of the times — those pushing, struggling, raging 
times of strife — brought men to the fore, as a rule, 
who were self-seekers to such a degree that they put 
worldly advancement before their own lives even, let 
alone the lives of others. It is little wonder if the 
poor “ Scotch bodies ” seldom found themselves able 
to see round the broad shoulders of these enemies of 
theirs, to where other men stood, who were as true as 
themselves to the pure faith of Christ. 

Englishmen, prelates, popes, and persecutors, were 
all one word, or words with one meaning, to many 
thousands of individuals living north of Berwick, in 


The New Bishop of Dunblane. 117 


the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. On the 
other hand, many thousands of those living south 
of the Border believed actually, whilst others pre- 
tended to believe, that a Scot, a fanatic, a fool, and a 
rebel against ail constituted and lawful authority, 
were also one and the same individual, taking the 
thing as a rule, one from which the exceptions 
were few. 

The English Bishop, who beat a retreat before 
what he scornfully stigmatized as “ the new Bishop’s 
cant,” mentally decided that Leighton at any rate was 
no exception to the rule, but was as worthy to be 
ranked amongst “ the barbarians,” as any one of his 
wildest, most unlettered countrymen. 

Muttered ejaculations and whispered comments 
to his friends and acquaintances, together with a 
generous bestowal of significant looks for the benefit 
of bystanders at large, quickly made others aware of 
his low esteem for this one at least of his fresh 
colleagues ; and Robert Leighton was left in peace, 
free from fulsome flatteries which were ever recog- 
nized to be unwholesome by his honest taste, and 
uncalled upon to answer to congratulations which 
he felt were so* singularly out of place under present 
circumstances. 

Ever and again he gazed round upon the beaming 
countenances of his three companions in the recent 
consecration, and each time his feelings of bewildered 
shame increased, till they threatened at length to 
overwhelm even his calm, faith-sustained reason. 


u 8 Graham McCall's Victory . 


“ For the sake of peace,” he murmured to himself, 
“for the sake of peace did James Sharp urge me to 
join him in this step. ‘ For the sake of promoting 
peace/ he said, and to save our poor country from yet 
other possibilities that would bear with them yet 
deeper stings of mortification.” 

“ For the sake of peace,” he reiterated yet again, 
as he escaped that night from the crowded and 
princely withdrawing-room of those who were alike 
his hosts and the hosts of the Scotch Archbishop, 
during their stay in the English Metropolis. 

Leighton had never attempted to disguise from 
himself the fact that, although the step he and his 
brethren had just taken might be the lesser of two 
probable misfortunes, yet that it was, itself, a mis- 
fortune, and a fresh mark of degradation for all who 
bore the name of Scotchman. 

No wonder, then, that he was astounded, and 
shocked to the very depth of his sensitive conscience, 
when he saw his fellows bearing themselves with the 
boldest assumption of haughty dignity, and glorying 
in their new position, as though they had attained to 
it by their superior worth and merit, instead of being 
thrust into it, like so many captives, by their enemies. 

The heart of the new Bishop of Dunblane was 
heavy almost to the breaking-point as he knelt there 
in the solitude of his dim room, pouring out his soul 
hour after hour in prayer. 

As his mind dwelt upon the unexpected attitude 
ol his companions under the new circumstances, his 


The New Bishop of Dunblane. 119 


heart was torn with distracting, torturing doubts as 
to the righteousness of his own conduct in throwing 
in his lot with theirs. Clasping his throbbing head 
yet more tightly in his hands the words burst from 
him in a very agony : 

“ My Father ! — Thou knowest, Oh ! my Father, 
that I have longed to act according to Thy will.” 

And the Heavenly Father did know it, and so fully 
set His gracious seal to the knowledge that even to 
the present day Scotchmen do not grudge to admit 
that one good Bishop, even of modern times, has 
dwelt among them, that one compatriot still merits to 
be reckoned amongst their brightest lights of the 17th 
century, yet claims to be accounted a Christian of 
most noble life and exalted faith, although he broke 
through his Covenant vow, and his name is Robert 
Leighton. 

Meanwhile, however, at that present instant of time 
there was one person at least in the world who did not 
approve of him, and his recent doings. 

As his last audible word of supplication died away 
in a long-drawn sigh he was startled by the sound of 
a deep groan, immediately behind him in the room. 
His blood seemed suddenly to freeze in his veins. 
His breath stopped. For some moments he ex- 
perienced all the horrors of that mysterious terror 
which is, itself, capable of inflicting death. 

It was a well-enough known fact, in those days, 
that many a one of the extreme party of the Cove- 
nanters would esteem it a glorious act, and one well- 


120 


Graham McCall's Victory . 


pleasing in God’s sight, to destroy public renegades 
from the solemn bond. And even such a man as 
Robert Leighton might be forgiven if, like Peter, his 
faith faltered for a short space when he felt the 
waves of assassination were about to close over his 
head. 

But the period of horrible suspense was brief as it 
was unexpected. A second of those deep breathings, 
or groans, added a moral gloom to that already per- 
vading the apartment, and then a voice spoke, in 
tones that mingled caution with its sternness. There 
were just two words only : 

“ Robert Leighton ! ” 

But, spare as was the address, it was sufficient to 
give back the flow of blood through the Bishop’s 
veins, and the power of breathing to his lungs. He 
recognized the voice, and with the recognition came 
the assurance that he was in no imminent jeopardy 
of life or limb from his present unlooked-for visitor. 
Rather was it, instead, for that guest that his fears 
began to grow, so soon as they were allayed on his 
own account. He sprang to his feet with a smothered 
cry. 

" John Welch ! Is it thou ! !” 

The intruder came nearer, till he stood within two 
feet of the other. “Aye, thou renegade,” came the 
reply, in the same subdued but weighty tones — “Aye, 
thou renegade from all that the worth of Scotland 
holds most dear. Aye, it is even I, John Welch, 
who have penetrated into the lion’s den that I may 


The New Bishop of Dunblane . 


1 21 


acquit my conscience of the duty borne in upon it 
by upbraiding thee with thy faithlessness.” 

For a moment the Bishop shrank back with another 
of those heavy sighs, from the harsh words; but 
thought for his companion once more took the upper 
hand, and stretching out his arm with a gesture of 
anxiety and warning he muttered hurriedly — and 
without heeding the impatient indignation with which 
his opening address was received : 

“ My friend, my brother in the Lord, escape hence 
instantly, I beseech thee, I implore thee. Know ye 
not that there hath, e’en now, been put a price upon 
your head great enough, in these grasping days of 
hasting to be rich, to tempt the powerful as well as 
the weak, to try to deliver thee up into the hands of 
your enemies ? ” 

After his first outburst, at the titles given him, 
John Welch stood silent, with folded arms, and 
fixed eyes regarding the speaker until his adjuration 
was finished, then he replied coldly : 

“ Ye ask, Robert Leighton, if I am cognizant of 
this ! Verily, backsliding hath already been per- 
mitted, as might be foreknown, to cloud the fine 
judgment that of old marked thee out as one of 
wisdom’s children. How think ye I had penetrated 
through the midst of those who thirst for my blood, 
even to this inner sanctuary, if I knew not enough of 
my danger to use the Lord’s means to guard myself 
from the blasphemers ? Nay then, as I tell ye even 
now, right well I know that I stand here at my peril 


122 


Graham McCall's Victory. 


in the den of lions, and that your noble host himself 
would never hesitate to win the three thousand marks, 
the price of my blood, should he but find he had so 
choice a prize placed within his grasp. But what — ” 
“But what of that!” he was about to ejaculate, 
with cold scorn, when his friend interrupted him with 
the imploring plea that he would not then continue 
to risk a life so valuable, by remaining in a situation 
that he knew to be of such great peril. 

For first answer to this plea the visitor drew up a 
seat beside the dying embers on the hearth, and held 
his fingers, rather mechanically than for the slight 
hope of warmth, over the dull cinders. Then turning 
his head half round back to his companion, he said 
slowly, 

“ If you, Robert Leighton, have so wholly cast in 
your lot with the adversary, that you are ready to 
betray me, ye can do so. Otherwise, I am safer here 
for the next five hours than in any other spot on 
earth. Who, think ye, would seek the remonstrant, 
a framer of the Supplication, the uncompromising 
Covenanter, John Welch, in the chamber of the new 
Prelate, Robert Leighton, the renegade to his vow, 
to his country, and to his honour ? ” 

He ceased, and Leighton in his turn stepped up to 
the cheerless fireplace, and, mindful of hospitality, as 
a Scotchman ever is, he busied himself with restoring 
heat and brightness to his room, while he said in 
still lower tones than before : 

“ For mine honour, that I have laid long since in 


The New Bishop of Dunblane. 


I2 3 


God’s hands. He will guard it for me. For my 
country, that I love so greatly in the Lord, that for 
its sake I have wrung my heart by the taking of this 
step. For my vow — we sware to the Covenant not 
in a spirit of hostility to English Episcopacy, as I 
read it, but as a measure of defence against the 
arrogancies of the Papal hierarchy, and the dark 
errors of the Romish superstitions.” 

John Welch lifted those keen, strong eyes of his 
again, with their fixed gaze, to his host’s face. 

“Aye, fellow-countryman — for brother I may no 
longer call you. The children of the light can have 
no fellowship with the children of darkness. But to 
pass by that till I have answered you. Thou hast 
spoken truth, in part. But yet — even to take the 
question wholly on your argument — we did so swear, 
and an oath is ever an oath.” 

“ Even when it is a Herod’s oath, that takes away 
the Baptist’s life,” said Leighton. And he stooped 
lower over the lighting coals as he continued — “ No, 
no, Welch. The Lord Himself knows that my heart 
is sore enough with pain and miseries ; but in His 
sight I dare at least affirm that my soul is free from 
the guilt of perjury.” 

“ How may that be ? ” was the stern retort. “ You 
signed the Covenant. Do you deny it ? can you 
explain away the fact ? ” 

Robert Leighton continued busy with such host’s 
duties as were possible in his present circumstances. 
But he to whom he tried to minister impatiently 


124 


Graham McCall's Victory . 


pushed away the little travelling wine-flask and the 
biscuit. 

“ Answer me,” he said imperiously. “ Do ye deny 
that ye signed the two Covenants ? ” 

" I do not,” said the Bishop. “ But will ye not eat 
and drink such poor stores as remain from my recent 
journeyings? You look faint and exhausted.” 

“ I am both,” was the cold reply. “ But it is from 
wrestling in prayer for thee, and not from want of 
meat. Man shall not live by bread alone. Nay, 
verily, as James Sharp shall find, when the rich 
things of this world shall turn to ashes in his 
mouth. But for you— -you confess you signed the 
Covenants ? ” 

“ I have never denied it.’* 

“ Then how say ye ye stand not now perjured in 
the sight of God ? Hark ye, ye Bishop of Dunblane, 
this is one portion of the oath ye took — 

“‘II. That we shall in like manner, without respect 
of persons, endeavour the extirpation of Popery, Pre- 
lacy, that is, Church government by Archbishops, 
Bishops, their Chancellors and Commissaries, Deans, 
Deans and Chapters, Archdeacons, and all other 
ecclesiastical officers depending on that hierarchy.’ ” 
He pronounced the last word almost with a shout 
of triumph, so full and clear did he consider that 
testimony on his side of the argument. “ There ! ” 
he exclaimed, with increased sternness, “how say you, 
now that ye stand not perjured if you signed the 
Covenant ? ” 


The New Bishop of Dunblane. 125 


The Bishop of Dunblane bowed his head with 
another of those bitter, heart-wrung sighs. 

“ Press me not to-night with yon bitter question- 
ings, my brother,” he implored, with noble humility. 
“ Scarcely to myself can I explain the reasons that 
have made my present path seem right ; to another, 
excepting to my Lord and ever-loving Master, it is 
impossible.” 

Stern John Knox’s stern descendant shrugged his 
shoulders, something of contemptuous pity for the 
sorrowing deserter from his own favoured camp 
beginning to mingle with his wrath. 

A constrained silence fell between the two, and 
had lasted for some time, when at length Leighton 
drew up his head again, with a certain air of dignified 
resolution that at once attracted his companion’s alert 
attention. 

“ Well,” he said quickly, “ have thy cogitations 
lifted thee out of the quaking moss, and landed thee 
on the firm ground again of that first true faith and 
Covenant ? Do ye fling from ye these new trammels 
of Satan, and return with me to the scattered, out- 
cast sheep, wandering without shepherds upon the 
mountains ? ” 

“ Even as thou sayest,” was the slow reply. “ But 

wait ” For the other had impetuously risen, and 

made as though to seize his hand. “ I am about to 
return to those poor sheep of the Lord’s flock. But 
my teaching to them shall assuredly not lead them to 
look upon the darkest side of such trials as the Lord 


126 


Graham McCall's Victory . 


Himself permits should befall us at this time. You 
have quoted to me one portion of our Solemn League 
and Covenant, I will quote another next following 
paragraph to you. 

“‘III. We shall, with the same sincerity, reality, 
and constancy, in our several vocations, endeavour, 
with our estates and lives, mutually to preserve the 
rights and privileges of the Parliaments, and the 
liberties of the kingdoms ; and to preserve and defend 
the King’s Majesty’s person and authority, in the 
preservation and defence of the true religion and 
liberties of the kingdoms ; that the world may bear 
witness with our consciences of our loyalty, and that 
we have no thoughts or intentions to diminish his 
Majesty’s just power and greatness.’ 

“In the present juncture these two paragraphs 
militate the one against the other. It is a sad thing, 
and one that sore perplexes our finite minds, when 
the choice lieth but between a choice of evils. But 
you and I alike are both breakers of our covenanted 
vows ; if so we must make sorrowful avowal. I, indeed, 
by becoming a bishop, and you by throwing con- 
tempt upon the King’s Majesty’s person and authority, 
as ye have done e’en now, by hectoring him, and re- 
sisting his commands. Even furthermore — you ignore 
that portion of the fourth paragraph that speaketh of 
such men as ‘ evil instruments ’ whose words, or con- 
duct, or writings tend to ‘ divide the king from his 
people, or one of the kingdoms from another.’ No, 
no, my brother, believe me, men’s wisdom is finite, 


The New Bishop of Dunblane . 127 


and those who framed our Covenants, noble as they 
are in purpose, saw not all the roads, nor all their 
goals, to which the very fulness of the oaths must lead 
us. You, out of the abundance, choose that which 
best suiteth with thy nature, when it cometh to the 
sorrowful necessity of a choice. I also choose that 
which meseemeth best for my beloved country, and 
above all, that which I believe hath in its observance 
the greatest promise of preserving that brotherhood 
and peace which is the very spirit of the Gospel.” 

John Welch started up to his feet with blazing 
eyes, and the impassioned action of his arms, and 
play of feature which had attracted to him such 
vast congregations from far and near during some 
years past, and had kept attention riveted upon 
his discourses with a sort of awe-struck fascination. 

“ Speak not to me in such strains ! ” he shouted, 
with utter disregard to the imminent peril of his 
position as a proscribed man in an enemy’s house. 
For James Welch ever had the courage of his 
convictions, at any rate. “ Speak not to me in such 
strains ! Were these Gospel times ye might preach 
to me of living up to the Spirit of the Gospel. 
But, man, they are not ! ” 

And with a sudden excited gesture he folded his 
arms across his chest, only to fling them wide again 
as he continued with rapid utterance : 

“ These days are far from those days as the east 
is from the west. We are fallen upon the times of 
Tyre and Sidon, upon the age of the Amalekites 


128 


Graham McCall's Victory . 


and the Philistines. And Agag was hewn in pieces 
according to the word that went forth from Jehovah, 
for all weak Saul’s compassion for a foul king steeped 
in sin. ‘ And Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before 
the—’” 

At this point the minister’s powerful voice rose to 
such a pitch that Dr. Leighton in his turn started 
up, and with an unexpected hasty pluck at his 
companion’s sleeve contrived to pull him back on 
to a seat, and to check his tirade at an especially 
opportune moment. 


\ 




CHAPTER XII. 



A PAIR OF FRIENDS. 

UR last chapter ended with the sudden 
interruption of the onslaught upon de- 
generate times and degenerate people 
which was being made by the vigorous 
tongue of that uncompromising Covenanter, John 
Welch. Lest there should be an attempt to renew it, 
Dr. Leighton pressed one hand upon his friend’s 
mouth and raised the other warningly. 

There were noisy, unsteady steps in the corridor. 
The men of the company from which Robert 
Leighton had withdrawn several hours ago had 
been drinking much wine since then, and were 
now rolling up-stairs to their bed-chambers in a 
state that would have been a scathing disgrace 
to a four-legged brute. But these creatures were 
two-legged animals, and “lords of creation,” so of 
course they had a lordly right to disgrace them- 
selves. At least, one may presume that is the 
way they would have argued the matter, had they 


130 Graham McCall's Victory . 

ound it expedient or amusing to discuss the 
question at all in any light. 

Most of the party were too intoxicated to pay 
much heed even had a thunderbolt fallen at their 
feet, but one or two of the number being what is 
sometimes called ‘ hard-headed/ or of exceptionably 
strong constitutions perhaps, had not reached the 
stupidly heavy or sleepy state, and were in a 
condition of rude boisterousness. 

"I say,” said one of these to a companion, as 
they mounted the stairs, “ is it not along the corridor 
yonder that my cousin hath appointed the quarters of 
that most demure and sanctimonious Scots parson, 
Dr. Leighton ? ” 

“Aye, by my truth I think so,” was the quick 
answer. “ Have you any thought for a good prank 
we can play off on him e’en now ? ” 

There was a delighted gleam in the speaker’s eyes 
at the prospect of perpetrating a piece of mischief. 
But the other shook his head regretfully, or at least it 
so appeared. 

“ It cannot be, Bernard. My cousin cares little 
enough for his Scotch guests, I dare avow ; but yet 
he would be angered more than enough to have them 
suffer harm or annoyance whilst beneath his roof. 
‘Noblesse oblige,’ you know.” 

“ Humph,” came the grumble of disappointment 
at losing the hoped-for sport. “ What did you want 
to remind me of the fellow’s neighbourhood for if I 
am to be debarred reminding him of mine? I feel 


A Pair of Friends . 


*3 r 


inclined to revenge myself on you, by giving you a 
helping hand over the balustrade down into the hall 
below.” 

The other threw up his head with a resounding 
peal of laughter, which came as the first timely 
warning to Robert Leighton, above his friend’s 
stormy declamation. 

“ All right,” said the laugher. “ Do the deed if 
you can; I give ye free leave, my fine fellow, and 
yet further, I promise that no struggles of mine 
shall let you from the mighty deed.” 

“ If you were not such a mighty weed, and I 
were but ever so little — ” 

“ Ah, ha, ha,” laughed the broad-shouldered giant 
again. “ Intend you that for a joke, my very lofty 
and noble Bernard ? For if you are not already 
* ever so little,’ I pray you to inform me what you 
are. ” 

“ Not such a long-tongued chatterer as you, Savile,” 
was the retort. “ I say, an’ I were but ever so little 
more than my five feet nothing, or thereabouts, I 
would at least make the attempt to take you at 
your word. Giants are a nuisance in the world, 
you understand. They have always their heads and 
shoulders in the way of tidy-sized folk, and are a 
sort of perpetual eyesore and insult.” 

“ Bravo, Bernard,” said Henry Savile, giving him a 
clap on the shoulder that almost sent him back to the 
hall again in reality, down the stairs, if not over the 
balustrade. 

I 2 


1 3 2 


Graham McCall's Victory. 


The same hand that sent him staggering caught 
him, however, and held him in a firm grip, while 
Savile drowned the irritated remonstrance cast at him 
by continuing his own speech. 

“ Bravo, tomtit. If you only cultivate that shining 
wit of yours with a little care I truly believe you 
may become competent for Court fool in time. 
You may reckon upon my good word, and you know 
I never grudge my labour or . fair speech to do a 
service for a friend.” 

Actually true as that statement was, apparently 
the tomtit’s plumes were ruffled for once somewhat 
overmuch by his chosen friend’s rough handling. 
He vouchsafed no reply, pleasant or otherwise, to 
this last sally, and wrenched his shoulder away 
from the supporting hand with a force that a second 
time threatened to overbalance his unsteady legs. 
But with all his faults Henry Savile was good- 
tempered, and he took his companion in charge 
again, swinging him up with himself on to the 
safe, level ground of the corridor, along which 
their rooms lay, as well as that of the Bishop of 
Dunblane. 

“ There,” he said, “ Sir Surly, now I will allow you 
liberty to take what care you can of yourself. But if 
you had gone headlong below there whilst in my 
company, some of your hot-tempered relatives might 
perchance have taken a fancy to have a tilt at me, 
without thinking it needful that I should have due 
warning first.” 


A Pair of Friends . 


*33 


“ Whatever they might have done, our fine priest 
yonder is seemingly bent on warning us that he is 
saying his prayers,” rejoined Bernard, already half- 
oblivious of what he had felt cross about, and startled 
almost into soberness by the stern-voiced shouts of 
John Welch which now fell upon his ear. They were 
matched out there in the corridor by a corresponding 
shout from the stentorian lungs of Henry Savile, given, 
as his friend supposed, in the mere spirit of impudent 
bravado, but it served one good purpose, in nerving 
Dr. Leighton to his resolute attempt to check his 
companion’s fanatic carelessness. 

Scarcely had he forced Welch back into his chair 
than there came a succession of thundering raps at 
the door from the two young men, accompanied by 
scarcely-subdued oaths from Bernard. The bishop 
turned pale with fears for his visitor, and hesitated to 
give any answer to the uproarious summons. Not so 
the minister. 

“ Avaunt ! sons of Belial ! ” he exclaimed, as he 
pulled away the restraining hand from his mouth 
“ Avaunt, and make not the holy calm of night 
hideous with your drunken clamour. Get ye to your 
beds, and seek sleep. If that bring ye not to a 
better mind it will at least stay ye from tormenting 
those whom ye should make it your delight to treat 
with reverence.” 

“ Say on, most reverend father and Lord Bishop, 
say on,” called Savile through the door, ceasing to 
thump on it directly he had managed to extort an 


i34 


Graham McCall's Victory. 


answer, and casting a hurried, furtive glance at his 
companion as he thus addressed the person who had 
called out to them. 

“ We are all ears, my Lord Bishop,” he continued 
with a noisy laugh. “ But my friend and I have 
ventured thus to summon you to speech with us, on 
that very account that you make mention of. We are 
now getting us on our way to our beds, and since we 
are as desirous for our own parts to obtain that sleep 
which you recommend as you can be that we should 
have it, we stand here as petitioners to you, that of 
your grace and condescension you will make your 
devotions in a somewhat lower key than that which 
well nigh startled us into broken necks a minute 
since. Have we your favourable reply ? ” 

Whether they had or no was of small consequence, 
for, with a repetition of the tumultuous laughter, the 
boisterous pair moved away from the door, and 
passing on along the passage were shortly shut into 
their own apartments, one of them at any rate wholly 
unconscious that he they had had speech with was 
not the meek-spirited peacemaker, Robert Leighton, 
but the hunted, impetuous John Welch. 

An hour before dawn he and the new bishop parted. 
They parted as those part who in the depths of 
their hearts are at one in Christ, whatever greatness 
there may be in outward-showing differences, and 
who know not when and where the next meeting 
shall take place. 

They saw each other in this world no more. But 


/ 

A Pair of Friends . 135 

one was their Master, even Christ, and they were 
brethren. The same man who said once, in the burning 
excitement of his hot zeal and eager love — “Lord, 
wilt Thou that we command fire to come down from 
heaven, and consume them?” said afterwards, “Little 
children, love one another.” “ Beloved, let us love one 
another : for love is of God ; and every one that 
loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that 
loveth not knoweth not God ; for God is love. . . . 
If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and His 
love is perfected in us.” 

The most hearty, the strongest prayer that every 
one of us in the world should pray is, that God of 
His infinite grace will grant unto each one of us 
to have springing in our hearts that charity, that 
love, which St. Paul tells us is the “ fulfilling of the 
law.” 

Outward forms will be of very little consequence 
when our dear Saviour’s love for us is imitated by us 
for each other. 




CHAPTER XIII. 

WILLIAM BLAIR OFFERS A CHOICE. 

T is a very uncomfortable thing, as Robert 
Leighton declared, when two duties ap- 
pear to pull us in opposing directions. It 
is also painfully miserable when gratitude 
and affection are thrown into opposite scales ; and 
thus lay the matter with Mistress McCall a few weeks 
after the English ordination of her brother, Robert 
Leighton, to the Bishopric of Dunblane. 

Many and many a time she had offered up most 
fervent prayers that God might so please to order 
events as that this learned and most Christian brother 
of hers might come to reside somewhere in the 
neighbourhood of Blair’s Farm. She would have 
been most thankful to have the comfort of his minis- 
trations, to replace those of the minister of Stirling, 
hung six months ago. And even more to her 
mother’s heart was the wish that her only child 
might be advanced by his uncle’s scholarship and 
noble example. And now her prayers were answered, 
as it seemed. 



William Blair offers a Choice . 


*37 


Dunblane was not much more than seven miles dis- 
tant from Blair’s Farm. A mere trifle of a walk to be 
taken once or twice a week by a sturdy Scots boy, and 
not anything of a forbidding distance even for herself. 

But, alas ! what of that ! There were far more 
insuperable obstacles to be overcome than any 
distance of hilly road that might lie in the way of 
the hoped-for companionship. The prayer that cir- 
cumstances might bring her beloved brother to 
reside near to her own home was certainly answered, 
but in such a way that poor Kate McCall found 
the hoped-for intercourse almost more difficult of 
attainment than it had been before. 

The roof that had sheltered her and her homeless 
child for the past ten years she owed to the loyal 
generosity of William Blair. It was he who had 
provided them with food to eat and clothes to wear 
throughout all that length of time, and he had 
come to her that morning with a face pale with pain, 
for the pain he might be going to inflict, or might 
be called upon to bear, but nevertheless as set and 
hard with a fixed purpose as though the features 
were moulded of cast steel. 

“ What is it, Blair ?” asked the lady, not expecting 
his presence at such an early hour, and greatly con- 
cerned at his expression, although she did not suspect 
that it had any immediate connection with herself. 
“ Have you learnt any fresh bad tidings, Blair, 
since we parted yesternight ? ” 

He bent his head. “ Even so, my lady, as my 


138 Graham McCall's Victory. 


heart taketh it. The Bishop of Dunblane, as men 
style him, hath arrived at the dwelling hard by, 
which hath been appointed him.” 

Forgetting the man’s cold aspect and stern tones 
in her own sudden gladness at the news he gave, 
Mistress McCall clapped her hands together with 
a momentary return of the gay, glad spirit of her 
girlhood’s days, when her joyous nature had made 
sunshine in her home. But almost as soon as it had 
arisen her brightness faded again. Her companion 
regarded her with quivering lips and a frowning 
brow for an instant or two, and then said with 
penetrating coldness : 

“Yea, the renegade from the kirk, the perjured 
Covenanter, the comrade of the base and infamous 
betrayer of the party whose cause was entrusted to 
his pleading, the accepter of a title that he hath 
professed to despise, hath come to pollute his 
country’s air, hath come to dwell among us as 
one of the living monuments of our national 
disgrace.” 

He paused. His companion sat with bowed head 
and tightly knotted fingers, seeing clearly enough 
now the vanity of her rejoicing, and marvelling how 
it had possibly come to pass that the scales had been 
over her eyes all these weeks. 

Day by day, frequently almost hour by hour, of 
late, William Blair had repeated his scathing 
denunciations of James Sharp, and he had not 
spared to include all such others as were spoken 


William Blair offers a Choice . 


r 39 


of as his colleagues, so soon as it was published 
abroad that Sharp was not the only minister who 
had consented to accept the imposed honours. And 
yet, from some cause or other, — from that strange 
obtuseness, perhaps, that affects most minds occa- 
sionally on some points, — Kate McCall had never 
associated her brother’s name with her servant’s 
wrath, not even with her own sorrowful indignation 
at the overturning of the almost idolized kirk of 
her country. 

From her earliest childhood she had been a witness 
to the beauty of the Christian character of her 
brother Robert, to the fair and noble Gospel teaching 
that the example of his life bestowed on all that 
witnessed it. He and her husband had been at one 
in all things. Even now, in the awakening of her 
dormant reason, it seemed a thing almost prepos- 
terous to her, that the blame of wrong-doing should 
be imputed to such an one as he. 

In the soreness of her wounded love and disap- 
pointment she grew angry. “If my son may but 
grow up to walk with such devoted love and meekness 
in the footsteps of his Saviour, as his uncle hath 
ever done from his youth up, I care not though 
he let the world call him fifty bishops, aye, the very 
Pope himself, if in their poor foolishness they shall 
so will. Ye go too far, William Blair ; ye strain at 
our Covenant until ye are like to split it, an’ let 
a’ those through thegither that it hath held within 
its fold.” 


140 


Graham McCall’s Victory. 


He drew away from her as she spoke, backing as 
close to the door as possible, and there he stood 
stiff and straight, the whole of the rugged stolidness 
of his nature more apparent than it had ever been 
before to its witness. There was a harsh, grating 
sound in his voice besides as he gave his answer. 

“ Nay, my lady, it is no the honest straining, to 
haud it tight in its appointed place, that has sair torn 
the Covenant. The Covenant itseT is hail and soond 
enough still, as aye honest pact must be whilst honest 
souls are fand to keep it. But some cast away their 
faith o’ wilful will, and other some — ” and there he 
broke off with a significant pause before he repeated 
with slow emphasis : 

“And other some let their grip get so slack that 
when they little think it the edge sinks doon beneath 
them, and they slip away o’er the side ! It is no the 
tight straining, it is the slack holding that gi’es the evil 
one the chance he is aye watching to take advan- 
tage of. And lest he draw me also down below I am 
here to tell ye now that no ropf o’ William Blair, 
the Covenanter, can gi’e shelter to those, whae’er 
they be, wha elect to hold communion with those 
who ha’ thrown shame upon the holy cause. A 
choice maun be made. The Bishop o’ Dunblane 
shall ne’er be said to be the freend o’ those to whom 
Blair’s Farm is hame.” 

And, with that for his final word of declaration, 
Blair opened the door instantly and decamped, 
waiting for no immediate answer, and, indeed, 


William Blair offers a Choice . 141 

leaving Kate McCall in such a state of perturbed 
trouble that it would have been quite out of her 
power to give a coherent one at that minute if she 
had tried. 

She wrung her hands when she was left alone, and 
sobbed like a child in her feeling of utter helplessness. 
“ I had no idea he could be so hard,” she murmured 
piteously. “ I had no idea he could be so hard.” 

Had she been able to see him, at the very hour that 
she was thus upbrading him, she might still have 
used the same form of speech, but, if she had, she 
would have felt greatly tempted to add — “ So hard to 
himself.” 



* 



CHAPTER XIV. 


TASTING SORROW FOR THE CAUSE . 



H, Maister Ivie ! Maister Ivie ! I ha’ e’en 
made an idol o’ ye, and now — ” 

“ Ay, of course ye have,” broke in an 
unexpected voice upon the lamentation. 
“ I ha’ telt ye that lang syne. An’ noo, I doobt, ta 
forward bairn will ha’ broken his neck, or maybe 
drooned himsel’ in ter milkpail ? ” 

William Blair had hidden himself away in an old 
disused barn when he retired from Mistress McCall’s 
presence. He had offered her a choice in obedience 
to his conscience, and he saw plainly that she would 
make her choice against him, well-nigh to the breaking 
of his faithful heart. But for all this he never wavered. 

Herein lay the strength of the Covenanters, the 
enormous vitality of the Covenanting cause, and the 
sublime example they set for the whole religious 
world, so long as time shall last, — 

God first — before all things, in their hearts, minds, 
souls, powers of body and brain, the Covenant of love 


Tasting Sorrow for the Cause. 143 


and service they had voluntarily made with their Lord. 
Human ties, fears, hopes, trials, temptations, every- 
thing that is incident to human life, had existence for 
the Covenanters as well as for us. Don’t forget that. 
But they said — 

“ Our Divine King first. We have entered His 
service, and are under a bond to do His will. And, 
thus bound, servants can neither choose their duties 
nor the conditions under which they shall be per- 
formed.” 

William Blair had subscribed the Covenant, wherein, 
“with hands lifted up to the Most High God, he,” 
individually for himself, “ had sworn, really, sincerely, 
and constantly, through the grace of God, to en- 
deavour, without respect of persons, the extirpation 
of prelacy.” 

Blair knew the words by heart. Not only in parrot- 
fashion, but they had become, as it were, a part of his 
very self. It was so with thousands of his country- 
men and women. And it is a dismally sad and 
terrible thing for English folks to have to remember 
that, at the point of the sword, by cruel fines and 
imprisonments, and by tortures still more barbarous, 
English people professing the pure faith of a re- 
stored Christianity tried to force them to forswear 
themselves. 

No attempts were made at persuasion, at reasoning, 
at argument. Nothing was tried but harsh laws 
and brutal force ; and the example in this case 
was certainly better than precepts for the purpose of 


1 44 


Graham McCall’s Victory. 


enraging the lookers-on, who saw men who had also 
taken the vows of the Covenant perjuring them- 
selves as time-servers, for very carelessness’ sake, or 
for self-interest. 

The fierceness and disloyalty subsequently charged 
against the Covenanters were due not to the Coven- 
ants, but to utterly uncalled-for harassments and 
persecutions. It is well known, that by a suffi- 
ciently sudden alarm the most timid of animals 
can be terrified, not into running away, but actually 
into turning to face the enemy. 

The Covenanters, as a body, were averse from strife, 
and from the opposition of violence to violence. They 
claimed a right to hold to the Reformed religion 
according to their own forms, and they held with a 
life-and-death clutch to this claim. For it they 
submitted to obloquy, to being deprived of their 
goods, to being driven as penniless wanderers from 
their homes, to all manner of minor persecutions, 
and contented themselves with protesting, to holding 
fast their profession of faith without wavering, and 
with determinedly refusing to be coerced into giving 
up ideas that to them, at any rate, did actually re- 
present right as opposed to wrong. 

But somehow there is something in the very act 
of persecution that encourages itself. Those who 
indulge in it grow to revel in it, and to crave for a 
full satisfaction. As it is said of that awful Judge 
Jeffreys, that he delighted to inflict misery for the 
sake of seeing the wretchedness of those upon 


Tasting Sorrow for the Cause. 145 


whom it was inflicted, so it may be said of all 
persecutors. 

If you gave a child a hammer he would not return 
you any thanks for the gift if he had to use it only on 
a mass of wool or a feather-bed. He would wish 
to hammer away at something hard, and the more 
resistance the better, so long as he felt the tool firm 
in his hand. So it was with those who persecuted 
the Covenanters. They wanted to feel that they 
were hammering away at something that was really 
hit hard by their hammer. So they beat away at 
the human wool till they actually succeeded at last in 
beating even that into a compact, hard mass. They 
had fined them, they had imprisoned them, they had 
beggared them, they had driven them forth, houseless 
exiles, to die of exposure and starvation. And all 
had been borne. 

This was too provoking! Doubtless persecutors 
do not say so, but they feel it to be so, from bullying 
boys up to bloodthirsty despots. They much prefer 
the power of hard hammering at something that 
resists. The Covenanters were hammered into resist- 
ance at last. So-called Protestants took to hunting 
their Protestant brethren to death, hunting them with 
dogs ! shooting down husbands before the eyes of 
their wives at a minute’s warning ; hanging young 
lads found with Bibles in their hands in their mother’s 
sight ; piercing the straw on barn floors with drawn 
swords, by way of an easy killing of those who lay 
concealed beneath. 


K 


146 


Graham McCall's Victory. 


Macaulay gives a few instances of the barbarities 
exercised during the short reign of James II. 
Many similar ones occurred from time to time during 
the years that his brother was on the throne, so these 
are not dismal exceptions to the general treatment, 
but the rule. 

“John Brown, a poor carrier of Lanarkshire, was, 
for his knowledge of Divine things and blameless life, 
commonly called the Christian carrier. He was so 
peaceable that the tyrants could find no offence in 
him except that he absented himself from the worship 
of the Episcopalians. On the 1st of May he was 
cutting turf, when he was seized by Claverhouse’s 
dragoons, rapidly examined, convicted of noncon- 
formity, and sentenced to death. Even among the 
soldiers it was not easy to find an executioner. 
His wife was with him, and even those wild, hard- 
hearted men shrank from butchering him in her pre- 
sence. John Brown spent the minutes of dread pause 
in prayer, loud and fervent as one inspired, till Claver- 
house himself, in a fury, shot him dead.” 

A few days later two artisans were taken in 
Ayrshire. The poor prisoners “were charged, not 
with any act of rebellion, but with holding the same 
pernicious doctrines which had impelled others to 
rebel, and with wanting only opportunity to act upon 
those doctrines. The proceeding was summary. In 
a few hours both were convicted, hanged, and flung 
together into a hole under the gallows.” 

A poor widow, aged, and a young girl only eigh- 


Tasting Sorrow for the Cause. 147 


teen years old, for refusing to abjure the Covenant 
and attend Episcopal service, were killed in a way 
copied from the old barbarous heathen times of the 
persecutions of the Christians.* And these were 
Christians, these imitators, these were those who 
had accepted the gospel of One who says : 

“ By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, 
if ye have love one to another.” 

These two companions, the unflinching old woman 
and the brave young girl, were carried to a spot which 
the Solway overflows twice a-day, and were fastened 
to stakes fixed in the sand, between high and low- 
water mark. The elder sufferer was placed near to 
the advancing flood, in the hope that her last agonies 
might terrify the younger into submission. But the 
courage of young Margaret Wilson was sustained by 
an enthusiasm as lofty as any that is recorded in 
martyrology. 

She saw the sea draw nearer and nearer, but gave 
no sign of alarm. She prayed and sang verses of 
psalms till the waves choked her voice. After she had 
tasted the bitterness of death, she was, by a cruel 
mercy, unbound and restored to life. When she came 
to herself, pitying friends and neighbours implored her 
to yield. 

“Dear Margaret, only say, ‘God save the King!’” 

* This history has been so doubted and denied that even on 
Macaulay’s authority I might have hesitated to repeat it, but I 
am told, by a Scotch Presbyterian minister, that it is vouched 
for by certain testimony. 

K 2 


148 


Graham McCall's Victory. 


The poor girl, true to her stern theology, gasped out: 

“May God save him, if it be God’s will.” 

Her friends crowded round the presiding officer. 

“ She has said it ; indeed, sir, she has said it.” 

“ Will she take the abjuration ? ” he demanded. 

“ Never ! ” she exclaimed. “ I am Christ’s. Let 
me go.” 

And the waters closed over her for the last time. 

There is an equally pathetic story told by a writer 
who learnt it from descendants of the gentle sufferers’ 
own families. I will give it to you now, that you may 
see for yourselves that nothing in my tale can be an 
exaggeration on the unhappily shameful facts of that 
almost inexplicably miserable page of our history, 
when strong religious convictions were goaded to 
fanaticism on the one side, and thirst for power 
united to an obstinate imperiousness, on the other, 
urged itself to a relentless barbarity. 

In beginning his “owre true tale*’ of the lovely 
Marion Cameron, the old Scotch minister writes : 
“Murders were now common in the fields, and many 
were shot by the soldiers without trial, and without 
even warning. Marion Cameron was sincerely attached 
to the cause of the Covenant, when she, with two 
friends, was surprised by a party of the dragoons, and 
the whole three fled for their lives. They hid them- 
selves at last in a moss, and, being overpowered with 
fatigue, they cowered down to rest. In this situation, 
helpless and exposed, they engaged in prayer, and 
resigned themselves entirely to the disposal of Him in 


Tasting Sorrow for the Cause . 149 


whose cause they were suffering, and for whose sake 
they were willing to lay down their lives. Having 
been refreshed with the consolations of that gracious 
Spirit by whose influences they were enabled to ap- 
proach the mercy-seat with the voice of supplication, 
they rose from their knees, and raised to heaven the 
serene and melodious sound of praise, by chanting 
one of the psalms of the sweet singer of Israel, which 
seemed to be adapted to persons in their situation. 

“The troopers, who on this occasion had followed 
them, could not fail to be guided by the hallowed and 
plaintive sound to the very spot in the midst of the 
morass where the worshippers had hidden themselves. 
The soldiers, on coming up, offered the girls their lives 
if they would burn their Bibles. 

" Such a proposal, revolting to their holiest feelings, 
they rejected with abhorrence, and were willing, far 
more willing, to part with their lives, than to desecrate 
the Word of God — that Word of grace, by the con- 
solations of which they were supported in their suffer- 
ings, and by the faith of which they hoped to be saved. 

“ However, the troopers had well known that their 
disgraceful condition would be rejected. They had 
only offered it to give themselves an additional pretext 
for proceeding to extremities. Accordingly, they at 
once avowed their intention to shoot them on the spot, 
as persons who refused to obey the King’s authority 
in this, as in other respects. 

“ There was no alternative ; the defenceless company 
in the moss could not yield, and they could not fly 


150 Graham McCall's Victory . 

and therefore the threatened death was of course 
inevitable. The dragoons, without the slightest com- 
punction, immediately prepared the instruments of 
death ; they fired, and all the three fell prostrate on 
the heath, and the warm purple stream of life mingled 
with the dark moss water in the moor, and their 
redeemed spirits were conveyed by angels from their 
mangled bodies to the mansion of eternal blessedness. 
Their enemies appeared to conquer, but they who fell 
were really the victors. ‘ They overcame by the blood 
of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony : 
for they loved not their lives unto the death.’ 

“ They were buried in their clothes where they fell, 
in the moss. 

“About seventy years ago, while some cattle were 
trampling in the place exactly over the graves, their 
feet turned up part of the clothes of Marion Cameron, 
which were then in a tolerably good state of preserva- 
tion, owing to the antiseptic quality of the moss in 
which they were embedded. And a large common 
yellow pin, which she was accustomed to wear in her 
raiment, was found and cherished as a precious relic 
of one whose memory was held so dear.” 

But to return to William Blair in his barn. He was 
quite a typical Covenanter, warm-hearted and peace- 
ably disposed. Slow to be roused to the fiery pitch 
owing to his Scotch stolidness, but of that intensely 
strong and resolute nature that nothing mortal can 
either turn or bend it, without the voluntary assent of 
its own will. 


Tasting Sorrow for the Cause. 15 1 

In the future, persecuting enemies made the attempt ; 
at the present hour he was tried through his affections, 
but he both times came off conqueror. 

The news that old Elspeth Spence came to bring 
him : 

“ As warning frae ane that is a grand frien’,” as she 
said mysteriously, only served to strengthen him in 
his conviction that the McCalls could not righteously 
be permitted to remain his friends, if they were friends 
and companions with the one-time Covenant member 
the Bishop of Dunblane. 

He could as easily have parted with his eyes as part 
with Ivie. But either would be given up at what he 
believed to be the Divine will, and so, a few days later, 
amidst the heavy weeping of Mistress McCall and 
Mary Blair, the pale-faced grief of Ivie, and the out- 
ward coldness of William, except when he muttered 
hurriedly, “ Tak’ the dog, Maister Ivie, ye maun tak’ 
the dog,” the lady and her son went forth from the 
home that had sheltered them so long. It might be 
that, even in that age of embittered feeling, those who 
loved the Lord with pure hearts fervently, might, 
although on the opposite sides of human invention, 
see through the mists of prejudice to grasp each 
other’s hands in the fervour of Christian love. But 
in the hour when William Blair watched his laird’s 
widow and child depart from his roof, to seek shelter 
with the Bishop of Dunblane, it seemed to him that 
Kate McCall was voluntarily uniting herself with the 
spirit of evil. 


152 Graham McCall's Victory . 

To tell the truth, she almost felt it to be so herself, 
when the rumours Elspeth had carried to Blair’s Farm 
were confirmed a few months later. The full tide of 
trouble had set in for the Covenanters as soon as 
James Sharp was fairly seated on the Archiepiscopal 
throne. One of themselves had gone over to the 
opposite side, and, as is usually the case, he was 
amongst the bitterest of their enemies, although it was 
in enforcing penalties, and not in helping to pass Acts 
that he was most vigorous against them. 

In 1662 an Act was passed turning every one out of 
any public post they held if they would not consent 
to declare that “the Covenant, and National League 
and Covenant, are of themselves unlawful oaths, and 
were taken and imposed upon the subjects of this 
kingdom against the fundamental laws and liberties 
of the same.” 

By that, you see, unfortunate creatures who were 
not firm-minded, and who dreaded to lose their daily 
bread, were actually made to declare that the very 
things that proved their liberty were against their 
liberty. It was as if a law were passed to force slaves 
to swear that liberty was slavery. 

Then there followed another Act, turning all minis- 
ters out of their churches and manses who would not 
consent to be presented to them by bishops, the very 
class of men that the ministers regarded with such 
especial abhorrence. 

Of course a large number refused to have anything 
to do with these bishops, and did get turned out 


Tasting Sorrow for the Cause . 


*53 


to make way for episcopal curates. The congrega- 
tions followed the “ outed ” ministers to any cottage, 
bit of moor, mountain-side, sheltered glen, or dry bed 
of a burn, where their beloved outcast pastors would 
stand and preach to them. John Welch was one of 
the first to begin ministering at these field con- 
venticles, and at them Ivie McCall and Blair had 
the intense happiness of renewing their intercourse 
almost before the privately shed tears on the boy’s 
cheeks had had time to dry. 

But even this happiness threatened to be short- 
lived. Heavy-footed and downcast, Ivie returned 
one evening to the peaceful little cottage, which 
Robert Leighton had hired for the accommodation 
of his sister and his nephew, that the widow might 
live undisturbed by the many jarring elements which 
even he could not keep out of the Episcopal palace, 
standing in the midst of an austere Presbyterian land. 

In spite of the lingering soreness still in her own 
heart, Mistress McCall was as keen as ever to note 
the signs of anything amiss with her boy. He was 
scarcely within the door of the cottage before she 
marked the slowness of his usual alert steps, and the 
shadow on his clear open brow. 

“You are o’er-wearied, my son,” she said, with 
tender solicitude. “ Come hither to this seat beside 
me, and take thy supper. It awaits the eating, for 
you are late.” 

Ivie obeyed the loving words so far as to cross over 
to the other side of the room, and drop down on to 


*54 


Graham McCall's Victory . 


the low wooden settle, but at the platter of oatmeal- 
cake and the bowl of milk he shook his head, and 
then pushed them from him farther on the board, 
with a fit of passing impatience. His mother looked 
at him with slight surprise. 

The inmates of that small abode lived too frugally 
to give much opportunity for quarrelling with their 
bread and butter. It is for those who dwell in the 
midst of abundance to indulge in that luxury, not for 
those who measure the amount of their meals more, 
perhaps, in accordance with their purse than their 
appetites. Moreover, a Scotchman’s dictionary is 
nobly devoid of the words “ epicurism ” and “ dainti- 
ness.” Certainly Ivie’s was, as attached to eating 
and drinking. 

“ Have you supped with your uncle, my son ? ” 
asked Kate McCall. 

Ivie shook his head again. “No, ma’am. Unless 
I have supped on words. And indeed that I do 
seem to have done, for they ha’ full satisfied my 
appetite, and I can no eat mair the night.” 

There was a quick glance at him of momentary 
vexation. “ Words, my Ivie ! Surely ye have not 
entered into unseemly controversy with one so good, 
so noble, and so much thine elder and thy friend, 
as thine uncle ! If such be so I must forbid thee 
further communication with William Blair for the 
present, for it will be he, and none other, that can 
have influenced thee to behave so unbecomingly and 
unlike thyself. William Blair hath sorely disap — ” 


Tasting Sorrow for the Cause. 155 


At this point Ivie started up. He had been making 
ineffectual attempts to check his gentle mother’s 
unusual flow of words throughout, but now he could 
bear no more. 

“ Oh ! mother, hush 1 ” he exclaimed. “ I pray thee, 
hush ! William Blair hath disappointed no one, and he 
and my uncle Robert Leighton are more of accord, 
for all the outward distance they keep, than perhaps 
any other two people in the world. I see both of 
them many times a month, and each time I under- 
stand better what St. Peter meant when he wrote : 

‘ Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, 
that we should follow His steps.’ You do not know 
what a life of constant denying of himself my uncle 
leadeth now. Why, mother — ” 

And the blue eyes filled with tears of admiration. 
“ Why, mother, even those of the Royalist party who 
live, meseemeth, in chief part upon sneering alike at 
friends and enemies, have no sneers for him. And 
those of our side, who erewhile contemned him for 
his change from the covenant to prelacy, are con- 
strained to admit that there may be a wider gulf than 
they had thought for, between error and sin ; for that 
he hath fallen into the one by wrong judgment, but 
nowise into the other.” 

Mistress McCall’s eyes sparkled with delight at 
hearing the praises of her beloved brother thus 
sounded by her beloved son. She drew him back to 
his seat, kissing away the tears. 

" He is indeed a true follower of his Lord, my 


156 


Graham McCall's Victory . 


child,” she murmured with lips quivering for thank- 
fulness. 

Ivie returned the caress. “Ay, mother, and 
William is but his fellow. We ought to know that 
well. Many a time have ye told me what he hath 
done for us in our sore need, and I tell thee, many 
a one can repeat the tale, since the ministers’ puir 
wives an’ bairns ha’ been ousted fra hearth an’ 
hame.” 

His eyes again grew dim with tears, at seeing 
which the other pair filled for sympathy, both with 
the supposed cause and with their sadness. 

"You will have been hearing tell of some case 
of extra hardness, my son ? ” 

The drooping head signed a negative. But the 
next minute it was lifted with the spoken answer: 
"Ay, truly, ma’am, that have I, indeed, although I 
shook my head as though I would say no. But 
I meant only a denial to your thought, and not to 
your words. The case of hardness my uncle’s house- 
hold hath been discussing this afternoon, is not one 
of individuals here and there, but of cruel oppression 
for us all ; with worse to follow, I overheard one and 
another mutter to each other, as I passed.” 

Mistress McCall clasped her hands. “ What is this 
first step that hath been taken on the cruel road ? ” 

" First step,” echoed Ivie. " Hundredth step I 
would ra ” 

But he in turn was interrupted. " Nay, my bairn, 
I mean the first of these immediately present steps 


Tasting Sorrow for the Cause . 157 


for our harassment, of which ye have now heard. 
Doth it threaten to touch us all ? ” 

“So William said, when he crossed my path, on 
my way hither,” was the reply. “ Our conventicles 
have been denounced as unlawful meetings and 
nurseries of sedition. In Glasgow an Act hath passed 
ordering all such of our faithful ministers as have 
still remained in their parishes to turn out before the 
1st of November. Think, mother, of that. Before 

the 1st, and we are already past the ” 

“Already past the 1st of October, and the bitter 
winter time coming even now upon us,” cried his 
hearer, taking up the sentence. “ Why, my bairn, my 
bairn, may the Almighty forgive their wickedness ! 
But they must have it in their wills to drive the 
ministers and their families not only forth of their 
parishes, but forth o’ the world besides.” 

Ivie McCall’s boyish-smooth forehead contracted 
with pain. “That is what one muttered jeeringly, 
some hours since, mother, would be a good clearance 
of the King, His Majesty’s dominions. William saith 
that already the citizens of Glasgow call the Council 
that hath passed the cruel Act ‘The Drunken 
Parliament.’ ” 

“ Because of their barbarous . unwisdom ? ” asked 
Mistress McCall. “ It may well seem that they 
should deserve the name.” 

“ It is not only in seeming, but for the reality’s 
sake, that they deserve it, if all that is said around 
here be true,” said Ivie. “ The report is that there 


158 Graham McCall's Victory. 


was never a man among them but he was drunk all 
the time, except only Lockhart of Lee, and he said 
that this proclamation will lay the country desolate, 
and increase the hatred to bishops, and confusion 
among the people. ,, 

“ Ay, truly ! What else can our blind-eyed rulers 
expect ? ” murmured the widow thoughtfully, as to 
herself. Then aloud again she asked : “ And what 
saith William Blair to all this, my son ; seemeth it 
that he is greatly roused to wrath ? ” 

He paused for some seconds, gazing forth of the 
window, as though he would glean an answer from 
the withered brown bracken shivering beneath the 
sharp October blast. Perhaps in some sort he did. 

“ No, mother,” he said at last, slowly, “ I saw no 
wrath in his countenance, ns he spake with me upon 
what we had both heard, neither did I hear any in 
his voice. Something though there was, but I cannot 
tell what it was. I could not then, I cannot now. 
He knelt, wrapping a weakly this year’s sheep in 
his plaid with one hand, whiles he spake, and with 
the other he held his bonnet on, as though he feared 
some gust of wind that might blaw it frae his heid. 
The wind hath risen now to such a height that I 
suld na have taken note had he done so now, but 
then it was full calm. The blue smoke frae this 
chimney-lug rose up sae brawly, like a wee bit slim 
pine dressed in the purple mist. But all the while 
William sheltered the sheep, and held his bonnet 
close grippit doon upon his heid.” 



CHAPTER XV. 

“ WITH WORSE TO FOLLOW” 

HEN Ivie McCall told his mother of the 
increasingly strict edict, that had gone 
out _ against the Presbyterian Ministers, 
he said he had heard it rumoured that 
worse was to follow, and the dismal surmises were 
but too quickly and too fully justified. 

As has been already said, when the people’s 
favourite Covenanting Ministers were turned out 
of their kirks for holding to the Covenant, their 
Covenanting congregations turned themselves out 
of the churches too, and the new episcopal curates 
had to perform services to bare benches. This was 
a matter of great depression to such of them as were 
well-meaning, of perfect indifference to a wretched 
number who only took the benefices as a means of 
livelihood, but to the Archbishop of St. Andrews it 
presented food for passionate rage and malice. 

The renegade step he had chosen to honour, by 
taking it himself, should be copied by the whole of 



i6o 


Graham McC all's Victory . 


his countrymen in outward seeming, at any rate, if 
not in heart. Of course it need not be said that the 
King, Charles II., and his Lord High Commissioner, 
were quite of the same way of thinking, seeing that 
they had themselves made the Archbishop to begin 
with. And so, those in power being of one bad mind 
in the matter, there only remained to frame and pass 
another Act. One that is clear to us now, as being 
stupid as well as oppressive, but which was a very 
heavy misery in those years to the people against 
whom it was directed. 

“ The people have left their churches empty, have 
they ? ” said the law-makers. “ Humph ! Then we 
will just see if we cannot make them fill them again. 
Every one who does not go to the churches where our 
curates do duty shall be fined just as heavily as we 
choose, or even as those choose to whose rapacious 
hands we entrust the gathering of the fine.” 

“The Bishops’ Drag-net,” we are told, this was 
called. But close and stiff as its meshes were the 
fishes kept out of it. The plunderers got rich with 
fines, certainly, as far as the poverty of the land 
would allow, but the churches remained well-nigh as 
empty as before. 

The sturdy, faithful people would give up all of 
this world’s gear, but their consciences belonged to 
God. Those they would yield to no man’s keeping ; 
they were God’s. 

But wait — A brilliant idea occurred to the inventors 
of these cruelly oppressive Acts. A whole great 


“ With Worse to Follow !' 161 


number of these resolute Covenanters were neces- 
sarily weak women and old folks ; if they would not 
yield to threats and fines, in the matter of going to 
church, they should at least be prevented from 
having the comfort of attending the irregular con- 
venticles held by their own ministers. 

There was an Act of Council published called the 
“ Mile Act.” By this it was made law that no minister 
who refused to have anything to do with the bishops 
should be allowed to remain anywhere within twenty 
miles of his old parish. 

There were other regulations as to where he might 
not be, besides. But the especial one that chiefly 
affected these shepherds and their flocks was that 
which placed this prohibitory distance between them. 
And to crown all, a special new tribunal, called the 
“Court of High Commission,” was re-established, 
with the fullest possible powers to hale before them 
all such ministers as should still dare “to intrude 
themselves ” in the parishes whence they were exiled, 
and all such people as did not “ orderly attend Divine 
worship, administration of the Word and Sacraments 
performed in their respective parish churches by 
ministers legally settled for taking care of these 
parishes in which those persons were inhabitants.” 

Good care was taken that all these laws against 
their liberty, and their national form of religion, 
should be known to Scotchmen. They were published 
throughout the length and breadth of the land, and 
acted upon as soon as published. 


L 


162 


Graham McCall's Victory. 


“Ah! Maister Ivie,” groaned William Blair one 
day, stepping suddenly across his path as he came 
from a morning’s earnest study at his uncle’s. “ Have 
ye heard of the new judgment Court and its powers 
against our freedom ? ” 

Ivie bent his head. He had indeed heard the 
subject freely enough discussed by some of those 
about the palace. 

“ And to think,” went on Blair bitterly ; “ only to 
think o’ the kind o’ men that we are ordered to learn 
the way to Heaven from ! Even were we na’ forbid to 
ha’ aught to do wi’ them by our Covenant vow, wha 
could gae to kirk to listen to such false shepherds 
as they are ! Self-seeking robbers wha ha’ climbed 
o’er the wall. Do ye know, Maister Ivie, it is 
actually to these new shepherds o’ the poor sheep 
that the Government has entrusted the chief care o’ 
gieing in the names o’ those who keep away fra’ the 
kirks ! And mony, mony a ane o’ these fause curates 
ha’ already earned money by betraying members o’ 
the poor flocks to the Coorts o’ J ustice ! ! ” 

“Of Justice!” echoed Ivie with burning cheeks. 
“ Of injustice I should have thought you would have 
said.” 

A “ dour ” smile flitted over the man’s face. “ The 
Lord be praised for this, Maister Ivie, that He has 
e’en keepit thee true in heart to the cause, for all 
your present temptations.” 

McCall fixed his eyes upon his companion reproach- 
fully. “As I have told you before, William, I repeat. 


“ With Worse to Follow” 


163 


What you call my present temptations are widely 
apart from such as you imply. They are temptations 
not to cling less closely to the Covenant, but to 
lose hold altogether, and for ever, upon Charity — the 
Golden Law.” 

He stopped a moment or two, and then went on 
more vehemently — “ The true way to learn a full 
respect for the blameless lives and the fair speech 
of Covenanters is to witness the manner of life, the 
habits, the conversation of those amongst whom 
my lot has been in a measure cast the bygone 
months.” 

Blair drew up his head sternly. “And yet ye 
would have me suppose that the Bishop of Dunblane 
still merits to be considered a member o’ Christ an’ 
heir o’ Grace.” 

The young face grew softened in its expression. 
“ Aye, William, verily if there be ane upon this earth, 
in these evil times, that the Lord wills to confess for 
His follower, Robert Leighton is ane. Those wha 
coom about his home are not himsel’.” 

“ Nay, but a man’s friends, I reckon, are pictures 
o’ himsel’, like enough to tell himself by, fairly 
week” 

Ivie shook himself impatiently. He had argued 
this matter with the dogged, straightforward Cove- 
nanter many times already. 

“William, it is too bad of you to give way to 
prejudice, like this. Those of my uncle’s own house- 
hold, those of his own choosing, and who abide under 

L 2 


164 Graham McCall's Victory. 


his good influence, show forth the good fruits of his 
example. But for aye there are others coming and 
going, some from the Court itself, some from the 
Lord High Commissioner, and all these drink and 
swear, and bide na long enough to pay heed to 
precept or example that might help them to be 
shamed into better things. Then there are curates 
aye pestering for parishes, and aiding their pleas by 
bringing lists o’ those ministers in far away places 
wha ha’ not yet been found and outed fra their kirks. 
Mony o’ these consort wi’ the Courtiers, and fairly 
outdo them in ways and words that it wad shame 
ane o’ our ministers to speak of.” 

“And that it should shame ye then, Maister Ivie, 
to see and hear,” rejoined the man indignantly. “ A 
bairn o’ twelve years old in the midst o’ the Philistines 
and a’ their sickedness — What is thy — ” 

But he was hastily interrupted. “ I am not in the 
midst of it, William. I only see it, so to say, by the 
wayside. And what I see I hate and despise. The 
ancients used to make their slaves drunk, we are told, 
in order that children might see how hideous and 
ridiculous drunkards became, and so might learn to 
shun the vice. If you, and my mother and uncle, 
had wished to think of a plan for fixing my heart 
firmly to the Covenant, you could not have discovered 
a better one than this, of letting me see what those 
are who reject it, and who spurn those who hold to it 
as though they were animals lower in the scale than 
dogs” 


“ With Worse to Follow .” 


i6 5 

The rigour of his companion’s face grew a thought 
less stern, but his accent was still dubious, as he re- 
torted : “ Hech ! then, and you may be right. The 
Lord of His mercy grant it may be sae ! But since 
ye find sae mony guid reasons for maintaining a high 
respec’ for yon Bishop o’ Dunblane, I suppose ye’ll 
be applying next for the honourable post o’ page in 
the household o’ the man they ca’ Archbishop o’ St. 
Andrews ? ” 

The effect of this question was startling and un- 
expected. It was no sooner asked than, without a 
word of reply, young McCall turned short away from 
his companion, and dashed off, headlong fashion 
across the moor towards home. 

Pushing up his Scotch bonnet to one side, and 
rubbing his hand up and down over his short, stiff 
hair, his questioner stood gazing after him with slow 
wonder, not unmixed with fear. 

“ Ha’ ma words been the hammer to hit the richt 
nail on the heid ! ” he muttered in a voice that was 
choked with its horror-stricken note of pain. 

But even as the murmur passed his lips he saw the 
retiring figure halt, hesitate a few seconds, then face 
round, and come slowly back again, his countenance 
pale, and set with a gravity almost as stern as the 
watcher’s own. Having approached to within a few 
paces of the spot he had just quitted, Ivie stood still, 
and lifting his eyes to Blair’s face he said with a new 
slight touch of haughtiness : 

“Were I a heathen instead of a Christian, William, 


1 66 


Graham McCall's Victory . 


I should hold the insult you have put upon me but 
now sufficient warrant between us for a mortal feud. 
But I mind that it hath been said to the followers of 
Christ — * Let not the sun go down upon your wrath/ 
And so I have returned to wish ye the Lord’s blessing 
for the coming night, even as my uncle aye wishes 
those who come to him as troublesome, cruel-hearted 
emissaries from yon evil man, James Sharp.” 

Receiving no answer from his nonplussed com- 
panion, he added with a gleam of boyish irony : 

“ Perhaps some day ye, yourself, may have the good 
fortune to be sent as an emissary to the Bishop of 
Dunblane, and may then learn a useful lesson from 
one who is too noble-minded to think evil thoughts of 
others. I would ye might also learn from him some 
fair lesson, that might teach ye to forgive my mother 
for obeying the conscience which bids her keep friends 
wi’ her own brother.” 

Having thus said what he had in his mind, to the 
end, Ivie again turned away, and made the best of his 
way home, for he had already lingered longer than 
usual on his road. Blair remained where he had left 
him for some time, rubbing away at his forehead, 
by way of trying to rub clearness of decision upon 
many points into his somewhat slow-moving 
mind. 

But as yet no light shone for him along any path 
of reconciliation with those who held friendly com- 
munion with members of the Covenant-condemned 
prelacy. At last he put by his communings for the 


“ With Worse to Follow ” 


167 


time, and wended his own ways to his distant abode. 
As he walked all the bitterness nourished by recent 
events returned to his thoughts, all the heaviest 
sternness to his brow. 

“ Hech ! ” he muttered at last, in no very careful 
tones: “ Elspeth saith that James Sharp hath a 
compact wi’ the Evil One. And I doobt but it is mair 
charitable to judge that he acts by compulsion o’ his 
black master, than to think he gangs his ain gait in 
all his present wickedness, and sair harsling o’ the 
saints o’ the Lord.” 

Whether indignation burning so hotly within his 
breast made William Blair indifferent to aught else, 
or whether the apparent utter loneliness of the 
desolate moor had made him thus indulge in uttering 
his opinions aloud cannot be said, but it is certain 
that even he was no little taken aback when a man’s 
voice from somewhere at his feet said in a tone of 
off-hand coolness and warning: 

“ My friend, do you always make use of your 
voice when you walk alone out of doors ? If such 
is your ordinary practice, allow me to suggest in- 
different themes for your soliloquies. I do not 
happen to have the distinguished honour to be one 
of those estimable beings who go about doing the 
‘ harsling ’ work of his Grace of St. Andrews. But if 
I were, you see, your career of usefulness to your 
cause would be prematurely cut short. Permit me to 
remind you that thought ought to make you prude.it, 
if no care for personal safety will do so. Good after- 


1 68 


Graham McCall's Victory . 


noon to you now, and pray forgive my intrusion upon 
your outspoken meditations.” 

Having been so unceremoniously detained on his 
road, those who knew Blair most intimately would 
have expected that he would not have been so easily 
dismissed. But he recognized, or thought he recog- 
nized, in the great figure lying couched in the heather 
and enveloped in plaids, one to whom he considered a 
certain amount of deference to be due, and with a 
mute reverence he withdrew. 

Having continued on his homeward route a hundred 
yards or so he whistled softly, and then called — 
“ Wallace — Wallace — where are ye ! Have ye no 
greeting or sign o’ remembrance for yon Scotch-born 
Englishman, ye unmannered brute ? ” 

But a sigh followed the unjust reproach. Poor 
Wallace was not at hand to hear it. He himself had 
given him to another. He often fell into forgetfulness 
of that fact. He had done so now. 

“ Has your step-sister been here the day? ” he asked, 
as his wife met him on the threshold of the house. 

Mary Blair shook her head. “ Nay,” she said with 
the anxiety that is ever ready to trouble those who 
grow accustomed to a continuous stream of adversity. 
“Elspeth comes not thus far but when bad news offers 
itself to her lips’ telling. Surely for the present there 
is no more of that ? ” 

“Aye, aye, plenty o’ that, aye plenty o’ that,” 
returned her husband half-absently. “But Elspeth 
will no ha’ been here then. I thought maybe she 


“ With Worse to Follow .” 


169 


wad so, for one is around, I doobt, wha whiles gies 
her messages when danger is abroad. Maybe the 
fancy will ha’ taen him to do his warnings one whiles 
himself, though, if Elspeth has no been here.” 

“ She has no been ben the hoose at any rate,” said 
Mary decidedly. “For I ha’ nane been forth all day, 
and she is nane so saft of foot or low of voice as to 
enter and I not hear her.” 




CHAPTER XVI. 

A LATE VISITOR. 

ETWEEN the lights, a space of time short 
enough in Scotland, much shorter than 
England’s favourite “ twilight hour : ” Ivie 
had laid down his pen, Mistress McCall’s 
spinning-wheel had ceased to hum, and there came a 
tap at the door. 

Mother and son started, and exchanged quick, 
eager glances with each other. A happy brightness 
came into their eyes, and happy smiles to their lips. 
A ceaseless prayer had been in both hearts that 
William Blair might be brought, somehow or another, 
to see his way to being on terms of friendly inter- 
course with them again, notwithstanding Mistress 
McCall’s continued friendship with her brother, and 
her reception of his benefits. And here, surely, had 
come the answer to the prayers. Ivie thought, with a 
pardonable feeling of exultation, that what he had 
said to him that afternoon deserved some of the 
credit 



A Late Visitor. 


171 

The pair felt equally sure that they recognized 
Blair’s customary quiet, deferential rap upon the 
panels. But from the face of his human companion 
Ivie’s eyes fell upon the dog’s, and there they learnt dis- 
appointment as quickly as they had glowed with hope. 

Wallace was sitting up, with ears bent forward, and 
tail moving slowly and gravely to and fro on the 
floor. That was not the way in which Wallace would 
have welcomed his beloved old master. He who was 
outside was not a stranger to the dog, but he was not 
Blair. 

Ivie was thoroughly assured of this, even before the 
door opened in obedience to his mother’s eagerly 
uttered exclamation — “ Enter, and be welcome ! ” 

The door opened, Wallace got up, paced slowly 
over the floor, and laid himself down, a great bar 
across the doorway, which was filled almost as com- 
pletely now by a living door as it had been the 
instant before by the wooden one. Kate McCall 
and Ivie also rose to their feet, the lady with a low 
startled cry. No, surely, whoever the late visitor 
might be, he was not her husband’s faithful follower. 

She had never but once before seen such a giant of 
a man ; and that was in the aisle of the Old Kirk in 
Edinburgh, on the June day of the last year, when 
one, whose courtly manners and rich dress had been 
apparent through some attempt at disguise, had 
poured the fragrant essence over the headless body of 
the minister, James Guthrie. 

But her visitor of this night bore no resemblance to 


172 


Graham Me Call' s Victory. 


that man, to her apprehension, excepting in his size. 
Indeed even that seemed an exaggeration on the 
other ; as he stood filling in the doorway, the coarse, 
weather-worn bonnet pulled down over his brow, and 
a couple of huge, rough tartans so wrapped about his 
face and figure that he looked little more shapeable 
than an animated mass of mufflers. 

Whilst, however, Mistress McCall gazed at the new- 
comer with mingled distrust and curiosity, Ivie went 
forward to him with the air of welcoming a some- 
what awe-inspiring acquaintance. Whether or no his 
mother had ever seen him before, Ivie felt sure that 
he had done so, and that the man who now stood 
looking down at him was the same individual who 
had so greatly startled him, with much of the same 
inquiring gaze, in the doorway of his mother’s 
favourite sitting-room at Blair’s Farm. 

“ I fulfilled your command, sir,” he said with a low 
bend of his curly head. “ My mother has it safe. 
Would you have it back again ? ” 

“ Have what back ? — What is safe ? ” growled the 
grim-looking mountain of wraps, in a voice that he 
apparently knew as well how to disguise as he could 
disguise his person. The next moment, however, he 
broke into a short laugh at the boy’s mystified 
expression, and said in full, rich tones such as greeted 
Ivie’s ears on that past occasion : 

‘‘By my troth, my friend, you pay too high a 
compliment to my powers of dissimulation. Yes, 
you are right, we have made friends before. Still, 


A Late Visitor . 


l 73 


allow me to remind you that although I certainly 
have stretched out to an unconscionable length, there 
yet are other individuals as tall as myself in existence. 
Two at any rate there must be, for I am credibly 
informed that a short while since a man was accosted 
in the street by my name. ‘ I am not he,’ was the 
reply. ‘ Then you are such an one.’ But he was not 
such an one, but somebody else. And so you see, as 
has been remarked before, appearances are deceitful. 
And now to the business of my visit.” 

That such a rattle-pated chatterer could possibly 
have any, Mistress McCall had begun to doubt. 
His cultured speech having removed her first ap- 
prehensions of robbery, her mind had jumped to 
the scarcely more comfortable conclusion that the 
disguised caller was one of those English vagabond 
• fops, abounding during the idle, pleasure-seeking 
reign of Charles II., and that the object of the 
present visit was to find amusement in ridiculing 
“ the aborigines.” 

Happily she very quickly found that this sup- 
position was also wrong. Turning from her son 
towards herself with a most courteous inclination, 
he craved permission from her to explain the purpose 
of his presence there. 

“The politics of the present day actually affect 
even this peaceful home,” he said with a half-sigh, “as 
I will endeavour to explain. The facts are these — 
Two great men have just been trying a fall together. 
In other language, trying to ruin one another ; for to 


174 


Graham McCall's Victory. 


neither was power possessed of its required sweetness 
so long as the enemy was able to boast of also 
holding any fraction in his hands. It must be the 
ditch for one, and the top of the hill for the other.” 

Mistress McCall dropped her cheek into her hand 
with the sighing murmur — “Ah! James Sharp will 
doubtless be one of these proud adversaries. But 
who may the other be ? ” 

The stranger bowed courteously. “ Your pardon, 
lady, there is no other, if I answer you with reference 
to James Sharp, for he is not anywise concerned with 
the affair I now speak of — no, not with all his busy 
love of having a finger in the pie, hath he had any 
meddling between my — I would say between the 
present Lord High Commissioner, Middleton, and the 
one probably to come, so soon as his sense of the 
decorous may permit.” 

“Would that it might be a Covenanter!” exclaimed 
Ivie. 

The broad white hand came down upon his 
shoulder with the tempered weight of a benevolent 
sledge-hammer. “ It may be a Covenanter, my boy, 
for such of old hath the Earl Lauderdale boasted 
himself to be. But think not to reap any advantage 
to your beloved cause from his gaining the head seat 
at the Council-board. He is a Covenanter only as a 
second to being a Royalist, and a far-away second 
too.” 

“Very far away ; too far to be seen,” returned Ivie 
discons lately. “ I have heard at my uncle’s that the 


A Late Visitor. 


1 75 


Earl was one of the first to sign the sinful declaration, 
affirming the very Covenants he had vowed to God 
to maintain even to his life’s extremity, to be illegal, 
and not to be held as binding upon any one. He is 
not likely to do much towards easing the burdens laid 
upon the Covenanters.” 

The visitor looked down with increased interest at 
the boy’s handsome face, now suffused with the 
burning glow of emotion. “ You cannot have been 
old enough, my lad,” he said gravely, “ to learn much 
from thy father’s teaching before he died, but me- 
thinks he had been well satisfied to acknowledge thee 
for his son, had he lived to watch thy growth.” 

The words were so spoken as that Mistress McCall 
caught but the last word, and taking it up with the 
quickness of a mother to resent any possible slight 
upon her bairns she hastily put in : 

" Aye, sir, it is true my Ivie is not tall as some 
bairns are of his years. But I have been told that 
his father also was slow in growing, although he 
came to be of a fair height enough before he’d 
done.” 

The stranger smiled. “ Was your husband likewise 
slow, dear lady, in the growth of his mind and spirit ; 
for if so, in that I would venture to say that father 
and son are wide apart as the poles? It was of 
the growth of the intellect I speak, not of the 
body.” 

The widow blushed, and smiled also now, at the 
§rror into which she had fallen, and to relieve her 


176 Graham McCalPs Victory . 


slight embarrassment he returned to the former 
subject. 

“You are right, my boy, as to Lauderdale’s late 
act of abjuration, but even had he let that alone he 
would have been nought but the rottenest of reeds 
for any of his former associates to lean upon. He 
avers openly that he counts it his greatest honour to 
be the King’s servant, that in everything he carries 
himself as a servant and a faithful servant, and that 
in all respects he is resolved to serve His Majesty in 
His Majesty’s own way. Scotchmen have learnt but 
too certainly, ere now, that serving the cause of 
the Covenanters will not chime in with that 
resolve.” 

“And yet,” ejaculated Kate McCall, “and yet he 
was, himself, a twice-vowed Covenanter.” 

Her hearer shook his head with a half-laugh. “Ah ! 
madam, that constrained repetition of the oaths was 
a first sign, was it not, and a warning note, that those 
who insisted upon it felt that oaths had but a small 
hold sometimes ; else, why the need for a renewal ! 
Our King Charles saith half in anger, half in jest, 
that he had enough of Covenanting in his youth to 
last for a long lifetime, and more than enough of 
preachments and reproofs in a month than would 
have sufficed Methuselah for his nine hundred and 
sixty-nine years.” 

“ It would be the better for him were he forced 
to listen to some now, from the lips of those who 
would dare to speak the truth,” said Ivie quickly, 


A Late Visitor . 


l 77 


and as he finished the stranger laid his hand lightly 
over his mouth. 

“ Hush, my friend ; thou’rt as hot-headedly im- 
prudent with that tongue of thine as thy compatriot, 
John Welch. More than once hath he forced 
deception upon me to cover his uncalled-for rash- 
ness.” ^ 

“ You know Mr. Welch ! ” exclaimed Mistress 
McCall, in a voice of mingled surprise and pleasure, 
and in her excitement she again rose, and came 
forward towards the door. “Are you perhaps — 
perhaps — ” 

And there she hesitated, and tried to get a fuller 
look at him than the gathering darkness would 
permit her to obtain. Moreover, he drew the muffler 
closer up about his mouth and chin, as though to 
baffle the scrutiny. But even as he did so he 
laughed lightly once more, and replied : 

“ Am I, perhaps, also a minister, would you ask ! 
Ah — ha! Pardon my laughter, madam. Indeed I 
crave your pardon, but by my troth there is some- 
thing too droll in the association of such a suggestion 
with my name. Nay, nay, I am but a beggarly 
hanger-on of the Court, and, of the worthless, idle set 
to which I thus belong, perhaps I may claim the 
proud distinction of being the most absolutely a good- 
for-naught. But, fortunately you may consider — 
most provokingly for peace of mind, under my 
especial circumstances, say I, — early in my career I 

fell in for a few weeks with a man who was a 

M 


178 


Graham McCall's Victory . 


Christian, not according to the easy-fitting type of 
the present age, but of the kind that I imagine those 
men may have been who were first called Christians, 
I think my mother told me in my babyhood, at 
Antioch.” 

“ Ah ! ” ejaculated Kate McCall, regarding him with 
compassionate hope. “ You had a praying mother 
then, I judge. That is at least well for thee. For I 
have ever great hopes for the sons of such.” 

The flippant tone had gone when the somewhat 
unsteady answer came : “ My mother was such a 
woman as I take you to be. One of those who have 
washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb, till they 
are white even as His own. But her heart was aching 
for me, I take it, when she died.” 

The silence which followed this was broken at last 
by Ivie. “ But about the man ? ” he asked quietly. 
“ What did the man do during those few weeks ? ” 

“ Do ! ” was the echo, with the former flippancy 
reasserting itself. “ Why, he did me what seems to 
have been rather a bad turn, considering all things. 
He gave me back a wide-awake conscience. And it 
has most obstinately refused to go to sleep ever since. 
Owing to that same conscience I am afraid I cannot 
say that I have very materially amended my own 
ways ; but I have occasionally spent some time, 
trouble, and ingenuity, in helping those whose lives 
accorded better with the name they bear than my 
own does. More than once, as I have said, it has 
been my fortune to be able to throw a cloud between 


A Late Visitor. 


i79 


Mr. Welch and the long arms stretched out to make 
a snatch at him.” 

Kate McCall’s hands went together in the usual 
close clasp that marked strong agitation of her gentle 
spirit. “ Alas ! ” she murmured. “ Would that you 
had been at hand to throw such a cloud between his 
enemies and that shining light of our Kirk — James 
Guthrie.” 

As she mentioned the name there was a slight 
sound, as though of a smothered ejaculation from the 
stranger. But if so his voice had been forced back 
into an ordinary accent, as he resumed his own speech, 
without apparent heed to the interruption. 

“ Unfortunately, the troubles between great folks, 
and their squabbles, of which I have been telling you, 
involve little folks in their consequences, and such 
small power to help the persecuted amongst your 
countrymen, as I have possessed for the past two 
years, has diminished almost to the vanishing-point 
with the downfall of Middleton.” 

At last, with that announcement. Mistress McCall 
imagined that she had gained light as to the reason 
of this visit which was being paid her so unex- 
pectedly. 

“Ah, I understand,” she said. “You would have 
us convey the tidings to the minister of your inability 
to screen" him any longer from his enemies. Is it 
not so ? ” 

Again that short laugh. “If you would serve John 

Welch, madam, in some respects I assure you it must 

M 2 


i8o 


Graham McCall's Victory. 


be against himself. To tell him that he owed aught 
in the past, for the present, and possibly for the future, 
to such as I would be like inviting him to deliver 
himself up to his enemies. He is not of those who 
will take even such gifts as protection and life out of 
hands that are stained and soiled, ay, inwards to the 
very bone.” 

A silence for five seconds. Then he hastily with- 
drew his clasp upon Ivie’s shoulder. “ There, my 
boy,” he said with some gruffness. “ I crave your 
pardon also, for having ventured to pollute your 
shoulder with my touch. You good people are all 
too good to be able to do aught for the bad, but look 
down upon them with shuddering scorn and disgust. 
We must even do you a service in your despite.” 

Ivie was so taken aback by this unexpected out- 
burst that he stood startled and silent. But it had a 
wholly contrary effeGt upon Kate McCall. Her 
pitiful heart was touched to the very core by a 
heart-wrung cry which Was audible enough through 
the passion to her woman’s ears, although it was 
natural enough that a boy should not recognize the 
sound. 

Only once before in her life had she laid her hand 
on a stranger’s arm. That was beside James 
Guthrie’s bier, when she had prayed God’s blessing 
on the giver of the potent perfume. Now, a second 
time, she laid her gentle hand upon the arm of this 
man standing there shrouded from her ken in the 
doorway. 


A Late Visitor . 


181 


Wallace never moved. Stretched out at full length, 
he lay there as a bar between them. And the man 
stooped low, and patted the great, sagacious head, 
saying with that short, quick laugh of his : 

“ See, even Wallace warns me that it is not for 
such as I am to dare to cross the thresholds of good 
Coven an ters.” 

Then, as he lifted himself up again, there came 
that touch of the woman’s sympathetic fingers upon 
his arm. “ My friend,” she began, with just a faint 
tremor of timidity in her voice. “ My friend, did 
that man of whom you spoke awhile since, did he 
look down upon the bad with shuddering scorn and 
disgust ? ” 

His eyes were fixed upon the fingers lightly resting 
upon his arm. “ No,” he replied in a low tone. “ He 
had learnt at the feet of One who came not to heal 
the well but the sick, not to call the righteous but the 
sinners to repentance. Methinks you have learnt of 
the same Teacher.” 

‘‘And you also,” said the pleading voice; “you 
also will accept the gracious influence of the Holy 
Spirit, which is even now striving with you. And 
you also will learn of that loving Teacher?” 

He shook himself as though he would shake him- 
self free of his fit of gravity as he replied, with an 
effort at his former carelessness : 

“ Maybe, dear lady, maybe as the years roll on I 
may consider the matter.” 

Kate McCall’s hand dropped back to her side, and 


182 


Graham McCall 9 s Victory. 


her head drooped. In answer to the mute expression 
of sorrow, her strange visitor continued : 

“Nay, I would really make you a full promise on 
the subject, but an I am sure that I should break it, if 
I came across too many of those who remind me 
privately ever of one text in the Bible, and only one 
— ‘Judge not, that ye be not judged.’ I have sought 
guidance here and there, since he I spake of died, 
ay, of your own Covenanting Ministers ; but I have 
been warned off, as it were. If they uttered not the 
words aloud, they thought them : ‘ Cast not your 
pearls before swine.’ And so, madam, that I give ye 
not further time to consider that you have, yourself, 
disobeyed the injunction by bestowing kind words on 
me, I will say farewell ! ” 

With a repetition of the courteous entrance bow, he 
stepped back to take leave. But in the very act of 
turning to depart, memory flashed back upon him an 
important circumstance, and he returned to the door- 
way with a half-smile. 

“ That is just the way with me,” he said. “ I was 
departing with none of my errand performed. My 
tongue runs away at the slightest touch of the spur 
from the purpose I have at heart. Eighteen months 
and more ago a crystal perfume bottle was entrusted 
to this little lad here for your hands, hoping that it 
might some day be of service to one or both of you, 
if used as a reminder to him who gave it. With the 
fall of Middleton from power the talisman it may 
be — ” 


A Late Visitor. 


i8 3 


“Talisman!” ejaculated Kate McCall, lifting up 
her eyes with fear, not unmixed with the superstitious 
horror from which few indeed in those days were 
thoroughly free. 

But her companion smilingly reassured her. “ Nay, 
I used the word out of its accustomed sense. The 
bottle was but as a talisman to influence men, not 
spirits. As circumstances are now it may avail some- 
what, and it may not. Should you need to try its 
powers, consult with old Elspeth Spence. She will be 
able to advise you. And so, once more, farewell.” 




CHAPTER XVII. 

CALM BEFORE THE STORM. 

ANY and many a time, as the months flowed 
on, did Mistress McCall, and Ivie discuss 
their twilight visitor, as those who live 
quiet and retired lives in lonely country 
spots do discuss the rare events of importance that 
break in upon the general monotony of their lives. 

Time passed. Ivie still continued his studies at his 
uncle’s, who was growing increasingly heart-sick at 
the course of events in his country, and the utter 
fruitlessness of his efforts to change their cruel and 
disastrous current. The Blairs still held aloof from 
Kate McCall. Or rather, William did. For his wife, 
she only did his bidding, and sighed and wept privately 
over the accumulations of the sorrows of her genera- 
tion. Her husband had grown sterner and more 
silent than ever, and of late he had become cold and 
hard besides. 

But the blame would lie on the oppressors of 
his country, not on him. This is what the historian 



Calm before the Storm. 185 

says of those drear days. The picture shows plainly 
enough how peaceable, affectionate subjects like 
William Blair got transformed into fierce haters and 
fanatics. So far from being persuaded to turn over 
to the opposing side themselves, it was utterly im- 
possible that they could avoid thinking it the worst 
calamity that could befall any human being, that he 
should be induced, by either fair means or foul, to 
join himself to those who could behave so brutally. 

“There was now (ever since the many Acts of 
1662, you know,) a patent legislative machinery for 
harassment and punishment in force. To give it the 
more effect, military parties were sent to aid the civil 
authorities in the most conspicuously offending dis- 
tricts. The result was, what always will be the result 
of putting the enforcement of the civil law into the 
hands of the soldier — licence, oppression, and insult. 
In one district, a hard, rough soldier, Sir James Turner, 
was sent to command the troops. How terrible a 
curse he must have been to the people can be better 
understood from the dry detail of an official report 
than from aught else.” 

There was an investigation into this terrible man’s 
conduct some years afterwards, and amongst an im- 
mense number of charges proved against himhere is just 
one, to let you judge for yourselves what sort of justice 
was ever obtained at the hands of one whose duty it 
was to enforce laws . — •“ Reported by the Privy Council 
— Pie fined for whole years previous to his coming 
to the country.” 


86 


Graham McCall ' s Victory. 


The laws were harsh enough to beggar the whole 
country, but, under Sir James Turner’s rule, it would 
be a subject of melancholy interest were it possible 
to find out now how many weak, and old, and sick, 
and how many little children, died of actual starvation, 
whilst Sir James Turner and his troops lived and 
rioted on the bread and money that should have gone 
to sustain their lives. But to pass that sad reflection 
by, and to return to the characters of our tale. 

Whilst the wave of oppression was deluging wide 
districts with misery, Kate McCall and her son were 
sheltered in their fast adhesion to the Covenant by 
their relationship to the Bishop of Dunblane. Indeed, 
no one dared make it their very special business to 
inquire what of the Bishop’s own ministrations his 
sister and nephew attended, or if any of them at all. 
Both were at the palace rather frequently, and once 
Kate had ventured so far to indulge herself as to be 
present at her brother’s preaching of one of his most 
eloquent and Scriptural sermons. He had been quick 
to note her presence, and equally quick to supply her 
with one of the “ safe-conducts ” demanded in those 
inquisitorial times— a minister’s certificate. 

But, beyond increasing the indignation of William 
Blair, who by some means came to hear of it, the 
certificate had been a useless document up to the year 
1666, when I vie McCall was just fifteen years of age, 
and though still rather short, and younger-looking 
than his years, was sturdy as a Scotch boy should be, 
of singularly keen intelligence which had been already 


Calm before the Storm. 


187 


well cultivated, and with the promise given, in his 
early boyhood, of a generous and self-reliant nature, 
giving signs, to those who watched his progress, of 
a noble fulfilment. 

The mysterious donor of the Venetian flask was 
often in his thoughts, as he was often the subject of 
his conversation, as has been said at the commence- 
ment of this chapter. But the stranger had never paid 
another of his twilight visits to the McCalls, neither 
had the token he had given them been any more 
called for, hitherto, than the Bishop's certificate. 

A day was coming when it might be otherwise. 
An hour was fast approaching that should try Ivie 
McCall, and prove what metal he was made of ; 
whether of the gold that is purified by the refiner’s 
fire, or the worthless dross. 




CHAPTER XVIII. 



A CONVENTICLE DISTURBED. 

MOTHER!!” The tone of the cry, rather 
than the word itself, brought Mistress 
McCall with the speed of maternal alarm 
from the upper regions of the house, 
where she had been overlooking various stores, with 
the unspoken idea that there might be many of her 
suffering countrymen, during the coming winter, whom 
she and all true Covenanters would need to help to 
the utmost of their power, and perchance beyond it. 

But hark ! Again that cry “ Mother ! ” And with 
a sound of agony in it, as though it burst forth from 
a heart so overcharged with suffering that nought 
but a mother’s love could comfort it. 

One moment, and Kate McCall stood confronting 
her son. Speechless, staring at him with eyes almost 
as wild-looking as his own. There had but an hour 
passed since her last seeing him and now, and yet he 
was so changed that she seemed as though she scarcely 
knew him. 


A Conventicle Disturbed, 


189 


Instinctively, as it were, her hands went up covering 
her face, and then dropped slowly — slowly — down 
again, as though they expected to carry down with 
them, and bury out of sight, some grim dismal vision 
that had come so unexpectedly and cruelly to torment 
a gentle-natured human being. 

But as the eyes were once more unveiled they met 
still the same blanched, drawn face that she had 
imagined for the brief space must be a dream. 

“ Mother ! ” came the repetition of the name at last, 
but in a hoarse, thick whisper now, and with a con- 
vulsive shiver that ran through his whole frame, and 
contorted every feature of his countenance. “ Mother, 
they have murdered him ! ” 

And yet anew that convulsive throe seized the boy, 
and threatened to deprive his limbs of power to sup- 
port him. His hearer’s eyes dilated with fresh horror. 
His breath came with heavy, laboured gasps, that 
almost prevented utterance. 

“ They have murdered him ! — He was coming here 
for shelter — But they caught him — And I — I — stood 
by, and saw it done — They were men, six of them, 
and I only one, and a boy — ” 

He panted painfully for some moments, and then 
moaned out — “And God gave me no strength, no 
strength.” 

The despairing bewilderment of that last bitter 
complaint pierced his mother’s heart even more than 
the frantic passion of his former words, and clasping 
him in her arm she drew him into a small, narrow 


190 


Graham McCall's Victory. 


room just behind the cottage-door, at the instant that 
a party of soldiers turned the curve of the road that 
brought them within sight of the small homestead, 
sheltered in the hill-side nook. The comfortable little 
home that had been given up for a residence to the 
McCalls was the only building visible anywhere 
around, and thither accordingly, after a rapid glance 
at the place, the dragoons wended their steps, with 
faces ablaze with fury and bloodthirstiness. 

Well was it for I vie and his mother, in that terrible 
hour of peril, that the worthy dame had been led to 
seek as safe a hiding-place as any that the place 
could have afforded them on such terribly brief 
notice. 

But we must go back a short time, to discover the 
explanation of young McCall’s tragic words, and 
the cause of his present dangerous position, as one of 
those sought for by a set of men whose tempers and 
circumstances had deadened them to sentiments of 
mercy or forbearance. 

It was the evening of the previous day when a 
little party of friends, poor people all of them, shep- 
herds, field-labourers, and like humble folk, had met 
for prayer and Bible reading in the simple cottage of 
a sick man. 

Daniel McMichael had been sought for by the 
King’s troops for some months past, and had barely 
saved his life by hiding now in a cave almost below 
the level of the stream, now in the midst of the 
quaking moss, or up in some narrow cleft of the 


A Conventicle Disturbed. 19 1 

bleak hill. But the inclement weather, and his many 
privations, had at last utterly broken down his bodily 
strength, and under the thick cover of a dense mist 
some of his comrades had carried the poor, fever- 
stricken fellow home to be nursed by his weeping 
wife, and to be in what comfort was possible to his 
aching body, at any rate until his sickness grew less 
sore. 

“You are quite safe for a while, I am confident,” 
said one. “ For those who seek to compass your 
death are off the clue, I have discovered, and are 
hunting for you many miles from here.” 

And with these words of cheer he helped the 
bearers to convey the sufferer as a wounded bird into 
a trap. For he who spoke them was a Judas. 

Of all hideous trades there can surely be none 
to equal that of the spy, even regarded from its 
fairest side. But when the spy is the informer to 
betray innocent blood, then, truly, one’s very hand 
grows hot with horror and shame even as it writes so 
execrable a being’s name. 

With the cool, base calculation going on in his 
mind, of how much money he was to be paid for the 
betrayal of his holy-living, God-fearing neighbour, 
Birsy the cobbler chatted on to him of the comfort 
and security he was to enjoy during the coming week, 
and aided to place him in the exact spot whence he 
could most easily deliver him up to his enemies. 

That very evening McMichael summoned such of 
his covenanted brethren as lived around to pray with 


192 Graham McCalls Victory . 

him, and enjoy the mutual consolation of reading the 
Holy Scriptures together, with the Lord Himself for 
their great High Priest in the midst of them, accord- 
ing to His promise. This was the opportunity that 
the wretched Birsy had counted upon. He knew 
well enough that, according to the pattern of his great 
Jewish namesake, so with this Christian Daniel, no 
amount of suffering, threats, or danger, would keep 
him back from offering prayers and praises to the 
Almighty. 

To deliver up the pious, obnoxious individual, 
under any circumstances, was to put money into 
the cobbler’s pocket. But to deliver him up whilst 
actually engaged in the services of an unlawful con- 
venticle would certainly be “one of the best paid 
bits of work that he had ever done,” muttered the 
dastardly informer, as he hurried away from the 
unsuspecting victim’s cottage, on the plea of sum- 
moning the inmates of an outlying farm to the prayer- 
meeting, but in reality to fly as fast as his feet — nay, 
rather one should say, as fast as greed — would carry 
him, to where the dragoons with their commander 
lay in temporary concealment, in order to put the 
Covenanters off their guard. 

But rough, unruly men, actuated by no keener 
motive than that of huntsmen half-satiated with 
a day’s sport, do not hide themselves away with 
such care but what the vigilant eyes of those who 
have a life and death interest in their movements 
may discover them. 


A Conventicle Disturbed. 


l 93 


Scarcely had Daniel McMichael opened the even- 
ing’s devotions by offering up thanks from his very 
soul, as he lay there upon his sick-bed, for the 
Father’s mercy in vouchsafing them the grace to love 
Him, than another of the hunted brethren flew 
breathless into the crowded kitchen. In one instant 
all was confusion and alarm. The face of the new- 
comer told his tale even before his lips found power 
to exclaim : 

“ They are upon us ! — Fly ! ” 

Who “ they ” were, none needed to inquire. In the 
midst of the turmoil there was but one of the assem- 
bly who remained tranquil. Sick, helpless, already, 
it might almost be said, in the hands of those who 
allowed short reprieve between capture and death, 
McMichael retained the sweet serenity for which his 
Christian life was so remarkable. 

“ As thy days thy strength shall be,” he murmured 
quietly, as his agonized wife flung herself upon him 
on the bed, clasping him in her arms, as though their 
weak power should protect him from his foes. 

With pitying resolution friends tore her away. 
Moments were precious. There was no time for cere- 
mony. No time to plead with her, for her own sake 
and her husband’s. Another courier had come in, 
with such tidings as proved the soldiers must have an 
experienced guide with them, to help them on their 
way so speedily. If a rescue were possible it must 
be made instantly. 

“ Save yourselves, my friends, save yourselves, I 

N 


i 9 4 


Graham McCall’s Victory. 


beseech you,” entreated Daniel, showing a solicitude 
for his companions that he did not feel for himself. 

A tall muscular man of middle age, unheeding the 
adjuration, continued his self-imposed task of rapidly 
folding the blankets around the invalid’s shoulders, 
whilst another of the party was similarly occupied 
in wrapping up the rest of the worn and emaciated 
body from the chill night air. 

“ Now lift him,” said the latter quickly, as his part 
of the work was accomplished, and in a moment the 
man at the head of the bed had gathered the whole 
bundle of patient and bed-clothes into his stalwart 
arms, and dashed out of the cottage with the whole 
of the members of the small conventicle. 

“Ah! leave me, I implore you, and save your- 
selves,” once more urged McMichael. 

“ Love thy neighbour as thyself,” said his bearer 
stolidly, as he marched on up the half-dry bed of 
the burn, carrying his burden with a speed that 
testified to his strength as well as to his self-denying 
Christianity. 

The rest of the company kept in a compact body 
around these two, the better to shield them from 
observation. But at last a hurried, terrified cry, 
issuing from almost every mouth simultaneously pro- 
claimed the dread fact that the pursuers were actually 
within sight of them. Shots were fired at them. 
Panic seized upon the poor creatures, and they fled 
in every direction before their ruthless pursuers. 

But there were two of the party who could not fly, 


A Conventicle Disturbed . 


J 9 5 


Daniel McMichael and his bearer. One of these 
revengeful shots had taken effect. McMichael felt 
his companion stagger under his weight for the first 
time, and sorrowful fear taught him a true guess for 
the cause of it. 

“ Blair,” he asked with a catch in his voice, “ Blair, 
are you wounded, through your merciful thought for 
me ? ” 

“ I am wounded,” came the answer. “ But, Daniel, 
heed ye this, I am nane wounded through ye, mind ; 
but through the will of the dear Lord, who doeth 
all things well. Maybe we’ll meet at the foot o’ 
His throne, ere the morrow’s dawn breaks o’er this 
troublous world. May He, who is the Father o’ the 
fatherless, watch o’er the little lad.” 

“Amen,” murmured the sick man fervently. He 
had never seen the " little lad ” referred to, but he 
knew perfectly well who it would be that his present 
companion would thus pray for, in the supreme hour 
of waiting upon death. 

As the Amen was uttered the wounded Covenanter 
took his last tottering step onwards, and then, finding 
his strength quite exhausted, he laid his friend down 
on the heather, and sank beside him, to await the 
coming of the soldiery. Five minutes elapsed before 
their heavy, awkward feet brought them to the spot, 
and in the interval pain and loss of blood had sent 
the man who had been shot into a heavy faint. 

“ There’s one of the pigs dead already,” said a 

dragoon with a brutal laugh, and, bestowing a con- 

N 2 


196 Graham McCall's Victory . 


temptuous kick upon the prostrate form, he turned 
away to the equally congenial employment of at- 
tempting by blows and blasphemy to put sufficient 
strength into their surviving, and most desired, 
captive to enable him to walk back with them to 
their quarters. 

But neither hideous language nor savage blows 
could conquer the ravages which fever had made upon 
their prisoner’s exhausted frame, and they were 
obliged at last to recognize the fact, and carry him 
as his friend had done before, meantime insulting 
him in every way that their malicious and rough 
tongues could hit upon, whilst he held his peace. 

McMichael’s very calmness and silence at last 
impressed the commander of the troopers, much as 
his great Master’s “ dumbness” had impressed the 
Roman Governor, more than sixteen centuries be- 
fore. 

" Do you not know,” he demanded at last imperi- 
ously, and with a mingling of wonder and exasper- 
ation ; “ do you not know that your life is in my 
hands ? ” 

To the jeers and scoffs and taunts and lying accus- 
ations Daniel had been as one deaf, but to the direct 
question he gave direct reply. There was a holy light 
in his eyes as he did so, and a confident, one had 
almost said a proud, smile on his lips. 

“ You ask if I know that the power over my life 
and death is in your hands, sir. Nay, verily, then 
I know not that, neither can I. This I know, and 


A Conventicle Disturbed. 


1 97 


am confident of, that my life is in the Lord’s hand, 
and if He see good He can make you the instrument 
to take it away.” 

With an oath the commander turned on his heel, 
and ordered the halting troopers to continue their 
route to the village where the prisoner should be 
guarded for the night. 




CHAPTER XIX. 



HOW McCALL DID THE DRAGOONS? BIDDING. 

cMICHAEL, prepare for death, for you 
shall die to-morrow.” 

That was the commander’s final good- 
night to his helpless, fever-stricken prisoner, 
and with his doom thus pronounced upon him he 
enjoyed so gracious a time of communion and fellow- 
ship with God, we are told, was blessed with such 
comfort of joy and consolation, that the hardened 
vicious men who guarded him were struck to the 
heart, and desired to die his death, if but they might 
enjoy his hope. 

Meanwhile the hours passed on, and with the first 
grey dawn of morning the troopers were astir again, 
conveying their condemned captive to the garrison 
town for execution. But the events of the preceding 
day had yet further weakened him, and it soon became 
very apparent that death would step in, without aid, 
to rob them prematurely of their victim if he had 
to endure the aggravated sufferings of a prolonged 
journey. 


How McCall did the Dragoons Bidding . 199 


For those same sufferings the stern-hearted com- 
mander cared nought, but he felt as though he would 
be actually cheated in some sort of his due, if his prize 
should after all die what might be called a natural 
death. 

“Swooned again,” growled the dragoon who had 
the unenvied duty of conveying the dying Covenanter 
with him on his horse. “ Swooned again, curse him ! ” 

The officer caught the grumbling mutter, and turned 
round to his follower, questioning as to what he had 
said. 

“ The rascal has swooned again, sir,” was the reply. 
“ And faith, Captain, but I believe he’ll be off the 
horse in another minute, and rid you of further trouble 
with him by getting a broken neck.” 

There was an instant’s pause after this speech, then 
“Halt!” shouted the Captain, before addressing the 
man again to whom he had just spoken. 

“ Smith,” he said with a sardonic smile that boded 
no good to the prisoner, “ you are right, Smith. He 
shall be off the horse, and now at once. But, lest 
he should come by a broken neck in the descent, 
Flemming there shall aid you to dismount him with 
as much tender care as though he were a nursling 
prince. A broken neck got through a fainting-fit 
were somewhat too easy a passage from this world to 
the next, by my troth, for a fox who hath cost us this 
much trouble in the capture.” 

Accordingly, in a green field, low down on the 
mountain-side, the dragoons came to a pause in their 


200 


Graham Me Cal Vs Victory. 


march. The horses were tethered, and while the 
Commander and his men callously regaled them- 
selves with provisions they had brought for the way, 
Daniel McMichael gratefully availed himself of a 
scoffing permission given to him to spend the brief 
interval in prayer. 

Scarcely had he sunk feebly upon his knees, and 
his harsh companions flung themselves full length 
upon the turf, to reap the fullest advantage from this 
unexpected rest, than one of them sprang up again, 
took a dozen long strides to the edge of the brawling 
burn below, and returned with his fingers twisted into 
the curly auburn locks of a second prisoner. 

** And pray whom have you there, Flemming ? ” 
demanded the Captain curtly, looking at the noble 
boy who met his own stern eyes so unflinchingly. 

Flemming was not best pleased with his officer’s 
tone, for he had expected high commendation for his 
active vigilance. He was more than half inclined to 
relax his hold of the bright hair as he replied 
sullenly : 

“ Who ’tis I’ve caught I don’t know, beyond that 
he’s a Scots youngster, and no doubt a young black- 
guard. But I’ve seen him skulking after us for five 
minutes past, watching as though he had some reason 
of his own for doing so. And so I thought just now, 
when I saw him off his guard, I might as well take 
and nab him. But of course, Captain, if — ” 

“ Of course you have done very rightly,” inter- 
rupted the officer more graciously. “ Come here, my 


How McCall did the Dragoons Bidding . 20 1 


lad, and give an account of your^lf. In the first 
place, what is your name ? ” 

“ I vie McCall.” 

As this reply was given Daniel started slightly, and 
for a moment he lifted his bowed head from his 
hands with a very earnest gaze at the speaker, and 
for an instant the gaze was also very sad. But peace 
returned as swiftly as it had fled, and the pale lips 
murmured with a full and quiet trust : 

“ Nay then, how can I think to have a fear or a 
pang for him ? He is in the'dear Lord’s keeping, and 
our God is a loving Father; He is Almighty, and He 
is our Brother and our Friend. Man can do nought 
but as He wills to permit it.” 

A man standing over the feeble prisoner, as guard 
while he prayed, remarked with incredulous wonder : 
“Do you mean to tell me that you still feel this 
certainty as to Infinite love and Almighty power 
of goodness, now that you are about to have half- 
a-dozen bullets sent into your body ? ” 

Daniel smiled. “ What a question ! ” he said. “ It 
was a duty to do what might be done to preserve my 
life, but do you think that I am sorry to have a quick 
call home ? ” 

The man shook his head, but whether in answer 
to the question or as a sign of awakening thoughts 
none but Infinite Wisdom could tell. None else had 
been a witness of this passing episode in the day’s 
events, for all others were occupied with the new 
interest attaching to Flemming’s capture. 


202 


Graham McCall's Victory. 


“ What did yo*r give me as your name ? ” asked the 
officer in command with a jeering tone and raised 
eyebrows. “Your first name, I mean.” 

“ My name is Ivie McCall,” replied the boy with 
flushed cheeks, but distinctly. 

His interrogator appeared to find it a pleasing 
pastime to annoy him, and so threw still more of 
a sneer into the ejaculation — “ ‘ Ivie/ i’faith ! And 
prithee then, my fine young scamp, may I ask what 
it is you cling to ? ” 

Ivie drew himself uf5 with unconscious dignity, 
and folded his arms across his plaid. “Yes, sir,” 
came the steady and prompt reply. “ I cling to my 
faith, my country, and my honour.” 

An involuntary mutter of something akin to ad- 
miration passed round the circle of rough auditors ; 
the sneer faded from the officer’s lips. He too prided 
himself on clinging to his faith, his country, and his 
honour, and no doubt did so, as far as a deadened 
conscience and blunted sensibilities left him free to 
see how to do so. 

“ There ! ” he said curtly, “ stand aside, cock-sparrow, 
for the present, until the work we have on hand is 
despatched. And then, seeing that you make so 
fine boast of clinging to your honour, we may 
consider it worth while to administer a soldier’s oath 
to you, and take you with us as our guide. ” 

“Your what ! ” exclaimed Ivie. 

“Our guide, youngster,” was the reply with a 
return of the sneer upon the mouth. “Our guide 


Horn McCall did the Dragoons' Bidding. 203 


to the foxes’ holes that it is our present employment 
to unearth. You shall show us where they are, and 
thus help us to get rid the quicker of the vermin.” 

The boy’s eyes literally blazed while he was being 
thus tauntingly addressed, and his answer burst 
from him before the last word was fully spoken. 

“ No vow dictated by you shall ever pass my lips ; 
and fox guiding you — ay, only follow me, and truly 
I will guide ye — guide ye to the quaking moss where 
ye may baith die and be likewise buried, that ye no 
more blacken the Lord’s created world with your 
base and cruel presence here.” 

For a few moments the commander was so taken 
aback by the young prisoner’s daring vehemence that 
he remained silent. It was the voice of another that 
bestowed rebuke for the enraged threat. 

“ Ivie McCall , 1 '* exclaimed Daniel McMichael, in 
a tone of pitying and sorrowful surprise. “ Ye know 
not me, my puir bairn, but I know ye, and it is not 
thus that ye havp been taught, to bandy words o’ 
savage human passion with thy fellow-men. Yon 
speech o’ thine had na the Spirit of the Lord in it, 
nor obedience to His law which saith — ‘ Love your 
enemies, do good to them that hate you.’ That ye 
should na tak’ their oaths, nor be their guide to 
sinful acts o’ cruelty, that is well. But give not 
railing for railing, neither learn ye from them lessons 
of barbarity. Are ye hearkening to me, my bairn ? 
Poor William Blair — ” 

Ivie sprang towards the kneeling man with a cry : 


204 


Graham McCall 's Victory. 


“Ah! say then — what of him? Why do you say 
1 poor ?’ William left me on the moor yonder yester- 
day at noon, he said on certain business, but of what 
nature he told me not, and he hath not returned to 
his wife as yet, I know, for I met her not long since.” 

“ Nor is he likely to,” called out a brutal soldier, 
“ if he were the fellow who was carrying this weakling 
here, for my bullet did its work pretty well, I flatter 
myself.” 

“ Do it as well now again, then, and at once,” suddenly 
ordered his officer, and pointing at the same time, 
peremptorily, at his fever-stricken captive. The next 
moment half-a-dozen muskets were pointed at Daniel 
McMichael, and before Ivie McCall’s horror-stricken 
intelligence had fully grasped the fact of what was 
taking place, the purple streams of the dead man’s 
blood were staining the heather all around. 

Drops of it had bespattered the hands of the 
officer. He looked at them with fastidious disgust. 
Then, stooping, he picked up from the ground one 
of his men’s “ Luggies,” * from which the dragoon had 
just eaten his noonday meal, and held it toward Ivie. 

“Here, youngster,” he said authoritatively, “take 
this to yonder streamlet. Fill it, and bring it hither to 
me, that I may wash away the reminders that dog 
there has bestowed upon me as his vile parting gift.” 

“ The lad’s gone daft, as his countrymen have it,” 
muttered one of the men to a comrade. 

“ Humph ! looks so,” was the rejoinder. 

* Luggie— A small wooden bason. 


How McCall did the Dragoons Bidding. 2,05 


And truly for the minute the awful shock had 
bereft Ivie McCall of reason. Consciousness, from 
being startled into too great vividness, had collapsed 
into utter numbness. This was the first time he had 
ever seen death, and it was now surrounded by cir- 
cumstances to chill many a heart, even of those to 
whom its aspect was familiar. 

Some passing sentiment of compassion found its 
way into the officer’s hardened heart, as his eyes 
rested on the boy’s expression of distraught horror. 
He gave him a light cuff over the ears, by way of 
using the first means that occurred to his mind of 
bringing him back to his senses. 

“ Come, my lad,” he said, “ awhile ago you were 
bold as a lion’s cub ! Now you look an ye could 
not say ‘ bo ’ to a goose. Where has the spirit oozed 
to, pray ? If you have never seen such a sight as 
yon before, you have the chance to see many in the 
future. We are growing tired of keeping to fines ; 
quicker methods are to be tried, for we mean to make 
a clearance, root and branch, one way or another — 
and a bullet is the quickest — of the obstinate fools 
who dare to dispute the King’s claim to supremacy 
in the Church, as well as elsewhere.” 

“He is the head of all things for us,” he added 
with daring blasphemy. “ And if you don’t reckon 
him so you had better make pretence you do, or you 
may chance to come in for the same treatment you 
have just witnessed, yourself. And now, do as I bid 
you, take this luggie to the stream there, and fill it 


206 


Graham McCall's Vic lory. 


with water for me. And while you are down the bank 
just dip your own head in, and see if you cannot 
wash the scare out of your brain and off your face, 
for I have not grown a fancy for marching with idiots 
in my train ; neither am I furnished with a suit of 
motley and accompaniment of bells to fit a Court 
fool withal.” 

And so saying he thrust the wooden bowl into 
a passive hand, and turned his attention back again 
to his own soiled fingers and garments. A dragoon 
of kinder nature than the rest took the opportunity 
to mutter in a hurried aside : 

“ Best make haste, my lad. Sorry I caught you, 
but our commander is not much in the habit of 
giving the same order twice.” 

The quick, warning whisper somehow penetrated 
to Ivie McCall’s brain in a way that the measured 
tones of contempt had failed to do. He raised his 
eyes from the slaughtered Covenanter, upon whom 
they had been fixed all this time, and lifted them to 
the soldier’s face. 

“ ‘ The same order twice/ ” he echoed with a gasp, 
and bitterly. “ No, he cannot give it twice. It would 
be useless. One has done his butcher’s work full 
well.” 

The commander’s patience, what small stock of 
that he ever possessed, was exhausted. He caught 
the words, and not relishing the epithet of “ butcher,” 
he turned sharply back, and repeated the cuff over 
the ears with a sounding thud this time. 


How McCall did the Dragoons' Bidding . 207 


“ Fetch the water, sir,” he shouted furiously. “ If 
you linger any longer one of my men shall flog you 
till he can stand over you no more.” 

I vie fixed his eyes for an instant on the speaker, 
with a flash in them of full returning intelligence, and 
without a word he flew off to the burn. Arrived at 
the very edge he paused a moment. He was being 
closely watched, and he knew it. In his present state 
of feeling he was glad to know it. 

Just as the whole troop expected to see him stoop 
to fill the cup, he faced round to them again with an 
indignant cry of defiance, raised the luggie high above 
his head, dashed it from him into the deepest current 
of the stream, and with the swiftness of a deerhound 
had crossed to the opposite bank himself, and was 
flying away from his enemies towards home. 

A terrible oath accompanied the deep threat of 
vengeance that broke from the lips of the outwitted 
commander. A flitting smile which he thought he 
detected on one or two of his followers’ countenances 
did not tend to lessen his wrath. 

But that wild cry of “ Mother ! ” was already sound- 
ing in the ears of Mistress McCall before the soldiers 
were fairly mounted, and engaged in puzzled efforts 
to discover any practicable path by which they could 
follow the fugitive. 

Ivie McCall gained time for his first breathless 
speech with her before they came in sight of the 
home that sheltered him. 



CHAPTER XX. 

HENRY SAVILE TO THE RESCUE . 

T was in obedience to the instinct com- 
mon to all living creatures that Mistress 
McCall had drawn her son, with his 
overwhelming trouble, into the small dim 
room. At the moment of doing it she had no 
thought in the matter at all. Certainly no thought 
of screening him from a danger which she was all 
unconscious threatened him. 

Her ignorance was soon dispelled. The trampling 
of horses, the curses of their riders, the shouts of the 
commander, made her tremble anew. She guessed 
well that the tumult disturbing the peacefulness of 
that narrow glen was caused by those who had been 
engaged in the work of butchery. 

“ Oh! my I vie,” she whispered, “would that tfyey 
had chosen any road but this to regain their own 
quarters ! ” 

Ivie withdrew himself from her arm as she spoke, 
but only to encircle his mother with his own, as he 



Henry Savile to the Rescue. 


209 


murmured below his breath : “ May God comfort you, 
mother dear, whatever befalls. May He strengthen 
you ! Those men are not yet on their way back to 
their quarters. They are seeking me.” 

Never in the future, never during the whole course 
of her life, not even when she saw her son faint 
beneath the torture of the boot, did Kate McCall 
experience the same feeling of sick helplessness that 
rushed over her as Ivie told her — “ They are seeking 
me.” 

The oaths and curses and cries which had sounded 
terrible to her before, now fell upon her ears with a 
new and ghastly sound. They were uttered by the 
voices of murderers who were thirsting for her only 
child’s blood. A trembling fit seized her, and utterly 
overpowered by bodily and mental weakness she sank 
to the ground. 

“ I will go out to them,” she gasped, utterly beside 
herself with anguished fear. “ My son, I will go out 
to them, and pray them on my knees to spare you.” 

Ivie knelt down on the floor beside her, and laid 
his cheek against his mother’s. “ Pray to God, mother 
darling,” he said in low, tender tones. “ I too beseech 
Him, that for your sake He will spare me.” 

Mistress McCall strained her fingers together till 
the blue veins stood out upon her hands as though 
they would burst. 

“ The only son of his mother,” she moaned. “ The 
only, only son, and she was a widow. The only son ; 
oh God, the only son.” 


o 


210 


Graham McCall's Victory . 


Whether the cry was uttered in obedience to that 
only son’s loving injunction, or whether they were 
merely a mechanical repetition of words that were 
constantly in her mind, who can say, but they had 
the merciful effect of restoring her to some degree 
of mental consciousness. 

Many a lone mother has found the unspeakable 
comfort of that quotation ; of that reminder to the 
Lord, that they have His own conduct as an assur- 
ance that they may trust their treasure to His 
compassionate care. 

Meantime the troopers had dashed into the cottage 
through the open door, flinging down against it 
various small articles they had plundered from an 
outlying farm-building on the road. 

The four small rooms and their modest contents 
were quickly overhauled by the rough, disorderly set. 
Neatly folded linen scattered hither and thither. 
Cups and bowls flung to the ground, that hands 
might get rid in the quickest way of impediments 
to such a search into corners as might have led 
people to suppose the quest was after a mouse or a 
tomtit’s nest ; certainly not after a human being 
requiring more than inches of space to hide in. 

But the minutest investigation had been made at 
last, with the exception of one into that little room 
behind the door, which the dragoons had themselves 
helped to conceal, and no one was found. The stir 
and bustle came to a pause. There was nothing 
more to be done. The Commander stood biting 


Henry Savile to the Rescue. 


21 1 


his lip savagely, and scowling. Then he turned 
fiercely on one of his men. 

“ Flemming, you have brought us hither on a 
fool’s hunt. Hark ye, sirrah, I shall have my eye 
on ye for this. So remember. You know pretty well 
by this time how I keep these kind of promises.” 

The man did know so well that he involuntarily 
cowered back a step from the formidable fist that 
grasped a heavy riding- whip. But his cheeks flushed 
hotly with indignation at the same time. 

“Your pardon, Captain,” he replied firmly; “I did 
see the lad dart in here, as we mounted the brow 
of yonder hill. My eyes are very far-seeing, and 
I swear to it. But the moment I saw that casement 
yonder I guessed that our search here would be lost 
labour. The boy was no booby, as any one could 
judge. And he’d have e’en been a bigger one than 
most are, had he stayed here when he could so easily 
get out, and make himself almost safe from any 
pursuit, by being off and away into the wood up 
there. I began to say this on first entering, but 
you — ” 

“ But he ” had done then what he did now, stopped 
all further speech peremptorily. In the first instance, 
he had done it because he was in such a towering 
state of passion that he had no patience to listen, 
and now he did it because he saw he had committed 
an error, and did not choose to receive any further 
reminder of the fact. With an imperative wave of 

the hand he walked up to that most intensely 

O 2 


212 


Graham McCall's Victory. 


detestable window, as he angrily considered it, and 
was about to stare moodily out at the pine forest 
when he started back with a cry. 

His men crowded up behind him, and echoed his 
exclamation. In both instances it was one of surprise, 
not in any way of alarm, but the return greeting 
came, notwithstanding, in the shape of a short, mock- 
ing laugh, loud and sharp, issuing from a stentorian 
pair of lungs, and words of fit accompaniment. 

“Ah, ha ! my redoubtable men of war. You know 
what it is to be afraid of something then, when it 
takes the shape of a ghost.” 

“And very excusable too,” replied the officer in 
the same bantering tone, “ when the ghost takes the 
shape of such a formidable creature as you. But 
what in the name of all that’s marvellous brings 
Henry Saville, the man of fashion, the bon vivant , 
into these starveling regions of desolation ? ” 

He who was thus addressed shrugged his shoulders. 
“ Henry Savile is noted for his whims, I believe, as 
much as for those other estimable characteristics to 
which you refer. And for ought else — starveling 
regions are a fine cure for dyspepsia, and mountain 
air sends one back with a magnificent appetite to the 
enjoyment of the dainties of Whitehall.” 

“Dainties indeed!” echoed the soldier contempt- 
uously. “ Give me a couple of long thick slices off a 
juicy surloin, and a straw, say I, for all your frothy 
dainties which leave a man’s good, solid appetite 
as craving as they found it. I’d as soon dine off 


Henry Savile to the Rescue . 


213 


dainties as I would spend my days in wild goose 
chases such as I have just been cheated with in 
coming here.” 

At that concluding sentence the new-comer’s care- 
less smiles instantly gave place to an expression of 
determined gravity — “ Ah ! ” he said, “ you remind 
me, Turner. My purpose in coming up to this window 
was to ask you what you and your men are doing 
in this particular abode, and what is the meaning 
of all the confusion and destruction that has been 
wrought in it ? ” 

The officer drew himself up stiffly for a few seconds, 
and compressed his lips. He had been little ac- 
customed to be so challenged during the past two 
years of his lawless reign of tyranny, and his inclina- 
tion was to resent the question with insolence, or a 
scornful silence. But — 

That great giant of a fellow continued to gaze 
fixedly in upon him through the window with a pair 
of brilliant eyes that seemed to have been made with- 
out eyelids. From the view outside he took a furtive 
glance at the view within. His men were looking on 
with undisguised interest. They feared their officer, 
but they were hardly likely to love one whose chosen 
mode of rule was by brute force and terrorism. He 
had no reason to expect them to consider it any part 
of their duty to interfere in an affair between their 
superiors. And then bullies always have a patch of 
cowardice somewhere about them, to be found by 
knowing eyes, however cleverly it is hidden out of sight. 


214 


Graham McCall's Victory. 


That most hideous pet bull-dog of James the 
Second’s, Judge Jeffreys, for all his roarings and 
bellowings, and thunder-cloud scowls, was an arrant, 
abject craven. 

The commander of dragoons shifted his foot un- 
easily beneath that unblinking gaze, and at the end 
of the short pause had apparently come to the wise 
conclusion that he had better answer his questioner, 
and civilly into the bargain. Middleton had had a 
present downfall truly, but he was by no means a 
broken-spirited individual, and as for Middleton’s 
young cousin, he always contrived to be personally 
popular with men of all parties in the State. He 
never pretended to have any particular opinions on 
any of the agitating questions of the generation he 
lived in. He was good-humoured, ready to do a 
kind action for most people, and was one of those 
individuals who somehow go through life winning 
friends and influence no one in the world can explain 
how, and themselves least of all. 

Henry Savile repeated his question, “What are you 
doing here ? ” and he received a plain answer, with 
only a flavour of surliness in the tone by way of 
betraying its reluctance. 

“ Well, Savile, I was not aware that you had been 
appointed General-Commander-in-Chief of the British 
army, but of course I have been long enough out of 
England to be ignorant of many things ; and since 
you ask in a voice of authority I suppose I must 
dutifully reply.” 


Henry Savile to the Rescue. 215 

“ Ah, to be sure,” was the cool reply, fortified with 
an equally cool smile. “ But pray don’t hurry your- 
self. I’ve lots of leisure time hanging idle on my 
hands.” 

“ Humph ! More than I have/' was the retort. 
“We came here to hunt for a scoundrelly young rat, 
and I daresay by dawdling the minutes away talking 
to you we have given the impudent rascal time to 
escape.” 

Henry Savile stooped his tall head forward till he 
brought it on a close level with his companion’s. “ It 
is very much to be hoped, for your own sake, Turner, 
— mind, for your own sake — that you have. And I 
give you a word of friendly counsel besides. You 
will do well to leave as little trace behind you of your 
unmannerly presence here as possible. This cottage 
belongs to the Bishop of Dunblane, and the inmates 
are his near relatives. I leave you to judge what 
sort of thanks you are likely to get for injuring and 
harassing one who has gained a strong claim upon 
the King by being converted to his will.” 



CHAPTER XXI. 

IN THE BLAIRS KITCHEN 

>HOP or no bishop, I’ll keep a look-out 
for that insolent young blackguard, his 
relative. And the day shall yet come 
when the rascal shall pay not only the 
debt for his own impertinence, in daring to brave 
me, but the little debt due for his champion besides.” 

Sir John Turner was riding back to his quarters at 
the head of his small company. Half-an-hour since 
he had bid farewell to the littered cottage and its 
unexpected guardian, but the thirty minutes of tran- 
quillity had served to increase his smouldering wrath 
instead of to allay it. 

Henry Savile knew the soldier’s nature well enough 
to guess that such would probably be the case, and he 
framed his warnings accordingly, to those whom he 
had taken under his charge. As soon as the troopers 
had left the neighbourhood he also drew away into 
the resting-place from which their shouts and uproar 
had led him so opportunely to emerge. But as soon 




In the Blairs' Kitchen. 


21J 


as night fell he returned, enveloped as on his former 
visits in the plaids with which he shrouded himself 
from the McCalls’ scrutiny. 

“ It may be safer for me, in certain quite possible 
events,” he explained that night, “ that you should 
not be able to swear to my identity, and better also 
for yourselves. Otherwise, believe me, there are 
none I would sooner claim for intimate friends than 
you, for your own sakes, and on account of certain 
circumstances connected with former days.” 

He said no more on the subject, and the two he 
addressed were possessed of too true a politeness to 
press him with questions. Besides, it may well be 
that their hearts were too full of personal matters 
that day to be very keenly alive to other more remote 
interests. Mistress McCall’s gratitude to God for 
having rescued her son out of the hands of the 
dragoons, and herself from a broken heart, over- 
powered everything else. She could scarcely even 
pay much heed to the earnest recommendations of 
the unknown friend, that she and Ivie should be very 
careful to avoid whatever could give the law any 
handle against them for as long, at any rate, as the 
present officer held sway in that district. 

“He is vindictive and unscrupulous,” said Henry 
Savile warningly, “ and knows not how to forgive any 
offence against himself. Even your near neighbour- 
hood to a relative in authority will prove but a small 
shield for you, if you permit him to find but an inch 
of legal ground to start from in oppressing you.” 


2 i 8 Graham McCall's Victory. 


Ivie looked up quickly — “ Why then — ” he began. 

He was about to say — “Why then, under those 
circumstances he had better have been allowed to get at 
me to-day, after all, and have done with it ; for our 
whole present lives give him a handle against us.” 
But in mercy to his mother he checked his declara- 
tion half-way. They had at any rate been delivered 
out of the enemy’s power once, they might be again, 
and meantime, “sufficient unto the day is the evil 
thereof.” 

The evil of that especial day had fallen not only 
upon the McCalls. It had visited other homes with 
a far heavier weight of affliction. In the home of the 
slaughtered Daniel MacMichael a weeping wife sat 
rocking the cradle of her infant and clasping to 
her bosom the shattered head of her dead husband. 
In the morning pitying neighbours had been praying 
with him around his bed ; at night they brought back 
the mangled body stealthily, that his widow might 
have the mournful satisfaction of a last look at all 
the enemy had spared. 

Out on the wild, dark moor a wife knelt with dry, 
burning eyes, trying with the desperation of a fast- 
growing despair to discover whether that morning’s 
tragic work had made her too a widow. 

Nearly twenty-four hours William Blair had been 
lying where he had fallen beneath his friend, before 
Mary Blair’s anxious wanderings brought her at last 
to the spot, where he lay stretched out stiff and cold 
upon turf sodden and dyed with his blood. 


In the Blairs' Kitchen . 


219 


With an agonized cry she had caught sight of the 
beloved, death-pale face, and cast herself beside her 
husband, pressing her lips to his. To the lips of a 
dead man, she had supposed. But she had scarcely 
touched them when she drew back with a low cry of 
hope, and fastened her eyes more earnestly upon the 
white face lying so motionless upon the ground. 

The lips were pale and stiff, it was true, but not 
with the coldness and rigidity of death. A closer 
inspection showed her that he must at least have had 
some period of consciousness since receiving the 
wound, for a strip of his tartan had been torn off, 
and bound in some weak fashion as a ligature around 
his leg. This was enough. There might still remain 
some flicker of the flame of life, and if so, however faint 
it was, she would set herself to fan it back into a full 
glow. 

She forgot herself, even it might almost be said 
that she forgot her love for a time, in her love’s work, 
until hope of success had risen and fallen so often 
that at last despair threatened to gain the upper hand 
for once, and finally. 

But even as her strength was failing the blessing 
came. There had been a sound — at least she thought 
so — a low sound of breathing. Perhaps some animal 
might be in among the gorse- bushes watching her, 
and it was the breath of that she had heard. She 
had been disappointed so frequently that she was 
actually afraid to let herself believe now what she 
was even sure of. 


220 


Graham McCall's Victory . 


The sound of low breathing entered her ears again, 
and then, some seconds later, inexpressible joy and a 
momentary pang of disappointment flooded her heart 
together. A voice, which she could not ascribe to 
any wild creature in the bushes, murmured faintly 
with yet closed eyes : 

" Maister Ivie — I knew that ye’d find me, Maister 
Ivie, before that ye’d gie o’er seeking me.” 

Never mind. Mary Blair bent softly to kiss his 
forehead, with tear-filled eyes. She had borne many 
little stings of that sort before, like other women, and 
she gulped it down, like a pill, smothered in a small 
sob, and so got rid of it. 

“ Dear Maister Ivie was oot seeking ye the morn, 
dear heart,” she said gently. “But it is I;” with a 
tiny thrill of exultation in the loving voice, “ it is I, 
your ain wife Mary, that ha’ been the first to find ye. 
And — and — to bring ye back to your senses, wi’ the 
grace of God.” 

And with that the overcharged spirit broke down 
for a short space, and laying her head beside her 
husband’s she wept for some minutes unrestrainedly. 
All things considered, it may have been the best thing 
that she could have done just then. It relieved the 
strong tension to which she had been subjecting her- 
self, and the audible expression of her feelings helped 
greatly towards William Blair’s restoration. 

He made more effort to rouse himself when he 
became aware of another’s claim upon his attention, 
and in no long time after, the wound in his leg tightly 


In the Blair I Kitchen. 


221 


strapped, and his arm laid around Mary’s shoulders 
for support to his feebleness, the man who but the 
previous day had been carrying poor Daniel from his 
pursuers tottered slowly, and with many halts, to his 
home. The simple home of a simple farmer, who 
had asked nothing of his rulers but to be left free to 
continue to respect them, and to worship God accord- 
ing to the form which he had been taught to con- 
sider most consistent with righteousness and a good 
judgment. 

This was all changed now. As he crawled back 
with pain and difficulty to Blair’s Farm the Cove- 
nanter told his tale to his wife ; and with each word 
he uttered the truth was more deeply borne in upon 
her that he was no longer a peace-loving, law-abiding 
man. Even where the laws might not touch his 
faith, they had become to him henceforth repre- 
sentatives of tyranny, and their framers tyrants, to 
be resisted to the death, force against force, sword 
measured against those that had been drawn to slay 
the innocent. 

It was too evident that Mary Blair would have 
been spared many a future terror and heavy heart- 
pang, had her husband died that night quietly out 
upon the moor. 

As long as it was possible, while he was laid up 
helpless and completely prostrate with weakness and 
his wounded leg, his wife kept him in ignorance of 
Daniel McMichael’s fate, and of the onslaught on the 
home of the McCalls, dreading the probable increase 


222 


Graham McCall's Victory . 


of his brooding wrath. But there were others as 
eager to feed it as she was to allay it. 

Daniel’s brother — wild-natured, tempestuous James 
MacMichael — had been fined heavily and unjustly at 
the very outset of the infliction of these sorely-felt 
punishments. He had been fined for what he had done, 
and fined for what he had not done ; fined for attend- 
ing a conventicle, and fined for not attending his parish 
church at a time when it was actually shut up, and 
with no curate appointed to its charge. He had been 
fined for one of his married daughters who had taken 
her child to be baptized by an “outed” minister, and 
he had been taxed to pay for the keep of soldiers 
who were already quartered upon himself. 

At last the fines had accomplished their natural 
work. He had been a clever farmer and an industri- 
ous man ; but industry and cleverness were being 
exercised to feed a set of great, rough, hulking bar- 
barians, who nourished their strength only to hunt 
down and harass his countrymen. He lost his ability, 
or forsook it. He flung away industry. The little 
farm fell into decay. His wife died of slow privation 
and weary-hearted ness ; and he took to wandering up 
and down the countryside moody-mouthed, sullen- 
eyed, reminding each and all ceaselessly whom he 
came across, of the many wrongs they were suffer- 
ing at the hands of those who bore rule over 
them. 

Nature had well fitted him for a demagogue, but he 
>vould happily have missed his miserable vocation had 


In the Blairs Kitchen. 


223 


not a blind, obstinate foolishness on the part of others 
forced him to step into it. 

This was the man who walked into the cottage at 
Blair’s Farm one day, when William Blair was fast 
advancing towards convalescence, and his wife was 
down the field milking the cows. There is no need 
to tell you that by the time she re-entered the house- 
place, an hour hence, her husband knew every single 
particular, narrated with a strong, underlined emphasis, 
that could help to heat his hate and indignation to 
the boiling-point. 

“And ye no to tell me onything anent Maister 
Ivie, neither ! ” he exclaimed, venting a share of his 
excited passion upon his wife as she approached his 
chair. 

She glanced round reproachfully at the guest. But 
the action was thrown away upon him. It would 
have slid off from him without taking any effect even 
had he seen it, but he sat with his head bowed, his 
eyes bent upon the ground, wrapped away from the 
present altogether in bitter thoughts of the past, 
and thirsting longings for a revenge to be reaped in 
the future. 

He had said his say, he had secured an ally for 
the coming conflict worth any two of those who had 
already engaged to be led by him in such a coi rse as 
he might deem it right to pursue, and for the time 
friendly looks or their reverse were alike wasted upon 
him. He had a weighty matter on hand — the 
maturing of his plans. 


224 


Graham McCall's Victory . 


However, what he paid no heed to, Blair was quick- 
enough to take note of, and he continued his rough 
speech to the wife whom he had hitherto treated with 
an unvarying tenderness and respect. She looked 
with anxious solicitude at the fever-spots on his pale 
cheeks, and the fever-glitter in his eyes, and contented 
herself with the one patient answer: 

“ Maister Ivie bid me tell ye naught.” 

Hoping to check a further outburst, she added : 
“ And, as ye see, he telled ye naught himsel’. Had 
he wished ye to know the ower sad tale, could he no 
ha’ telled it ye himsel’, think ye, gude mon ?” 

But William was in a frame of mind when no plea 
his wife could advance would have had power to 
soothe him. He beat his crutch angrily upon the 
floor. 

“ Ah ! ” he exclaimed. “ Will ye no haud your 
tongue? You could haud it still enough when it suld 
ha’ wagged ; can ye no haud it silent now ? Or will 
ye to show that ye are of kind as weel’s o’ kin to 
Elspeth ! Joost to think o’ ye pitting up o’ Maister 
Ivie’s own silence upo’ the matter as a reason for 
yours ! Was the bairn aye wont to blaw his ain 
trumpet, can ye daur to say? And had he told 
the tale, ony fule body maun see that is joost what 
he had been compelled to, an’ he would ha’ telt no 
lee.” 

He paused a moment, pushing the thick masses of 
red hair up off his hot forehead, and then he rose to 
his feet, with the exclamation : “ Ah ! after that a mon 


In the Blairs' Kitchen. 


225 

maun have some o’ the fresh air o’ heaven to blow 
awa’ the atmosphere o’ deceit.” 

And so saying he strode hastily out into the sharp 
November wind, and had gone across the yard and 
half over the field before poor Mary’s blinding tears 
had allowed her to see that he had left his crutch 
behind him. Picking it up with a cry of astonish- 
ment, and apprehension lest he should fall for want 
of support, she hastened after him. 

“ Your crutch, my William,” she cried breathlessly. 
“Ye ha’ gone wi’oot your crutch,” and she held it 
to him as she spoke. But he pushed it hurriedly 
aside. 

“ I want nae mair crutches,” he said shortly. “Tak* 
it ben the hoose again, and yoursel’ too. The wind 
blaws cauld, and your heid’s bare.” 

Again the tears started to the wife’s eyes at that 
touch of remembered care for her, but she dared ven- 
ture upon no remonstrance that the wind was also over 
chill and damp for an invalid. With a deep sigh she 
returned to the cottage, and laid the discarded crutch 
aside in a corner, more than half sorry in her secret 
heart that it was no more required. 

While her husband was helpless without that sup- 
port, there was little possibility of even James Mac- 
Michael being able to draw him into any self-sought 
fresh calamity. But now even the prostrating weak- 
ness appeared to have given way before the supreme 
force of will. Occupied with her own thoughts she 

had become as oblivious of her guest’s presence as he 

P 


226 


Graham McCall's Victory. 


had throughout been of hers, but a slight incident 
recalled both of them to their surroundings. 

Dim-sighted with weeping, and the dulness of the 
November day, Mary Blair had placed the crutch 
unsteadily, and as she moved about the room prepar- 
ing the midday meal, the vibration of the floor made 
it fall with a clatter to the ground, bringing down a 
pistol with it in its tumble, that had been lying on a 
ledge close by. 

The pistol had been loaded, and it went off with a 
loud report. Mary Blair echoed the sound with a 
loud scream, for her usually calm nerves were dis- 
turbed now, and overwrought with nursing and the 
multiplied sorrows and anxieties of the times. 

James MacMichael was aroused at length from his 
long dark musing fit. He lifted his great shaggy head, 
dropped his huge hands, and sprang to his feet with a 
cry strong enough to drown all other sounds in the place. 

“ Firearms ! ” he shouted. “ Who is using them ? 
What poor innocent fellow-creature have the assassins 
murdered now ? ” 

He looked like one distraught, and his companion 
shrank away from him in terror She had discovered 
the causelessness of her former fright, but here was 
a real reason, it seemed, for alarm ; and she moved 
thankfully to her husband’s side as he entered his 
home, questioning by words and looks as to the reason 
of the startling sounds that had so unexpectedly 
summoned him back. 

His own fears had naturally pointed, like his friend’s 


In the Blairs Kitchen . 


227 

dreaming thoughts, to fresh black doings on the part 
of the law-appointed, law-protected, most lawless 
marauders. Only twenty minutes ago he had stepped 
out of a comfortable, neat, orderly little home, and he 
had not been five hundred yards away from it in the 
interval. But it was quite within the bounds of pos- 
sibility that he was returning to find nothing but 
desolation and a heap of ruins. Such things had been 
many a time during the past three years, and he, 
himself, was to have bitter experience that such things 
could be again, in a day not far distant in the future. 
He breathed a prayer of thanksgiving when he saw 
the cottage still stood intact, and found all within as 
he had left it j ust now. 

“ But who has been firing off my pistol ? ” he asked 
wonderingly, turning first to his friend, then to his 
wife for explanation. 

“ The crutch knocked it from the shelf, and it went 
off of itself,” was Mary’s straightforward answer. 

“ It was a sign to ye that an idle weapon is a useless 
one,” said James MacMichael, with an awed solemnity 
that bespoke himself, at any rate, convinced of the 
truth of his declaration. 

He came forward and stood before the pair, looking 
down upon them. He was of a height and size as 
commanding as that of Henry Savile, and in disguise 
they might have been mistaken for each other, had 
Savile chosen that his graceful stature should imitate 
the stoop of the round shoulders of his inferior in the 
social scale. He had beguiled the heavy ennui of an 


228 


Graham McCall's Victory. 


idle half-hour in London by doing so one day, before 
the glass, in presence of his friend, Bernard. 

“ What, in the name of all the madmen who ever 
made themselves ridiculous, are you up to now?” 
cried the young Frenchman. 

“ Aping the attitude of a magnificent specimen of a 
Northern bear, I happened once to come across during 
my many journeyings, that is all, my dearly beloved 
Bernard. I hope I amuse you ? ” 

“Ah/ vraiment , greatly,” yawned Bernard. “I 
will even say, in compliment to you and your monster 
bear — Enormement. But — cela suffice — is it not? 
That is enough. Sit now rather and talk. When 
will they make an end to rid that Northern bit of 
your country of its two-legged bears, that I and you, 
and other people who likewise, as ourselves, deserve 
well of the world for our nobly advanced civilization, 
may parcel out their lands between us ? ” 

He had no need to proffer a second request that the 
bear mimicry might be brought to a close. It ceased 
as suddenly as though the bear and the imitator had 
both been simultaneously killed by one of those mar- 
vellous shots that Bret Harte’s heroes are so skilful in. 

The finely-shaped white great hands came down 
upon the small daintily-formed Frenchman. He 
might as well have tried to move beneath them as 
beneath the paws of a full-grown lion. 

“ Bernard, my dear friend,” began that finely-curved 
mouth above him. 

Monsieur Bernard felt as if a piece of ice had been 


In the Blairs Kitchen . 


229 


unexpectedly inserted between his teeth. He tried to 
smile, but something that looked much more like a 
half-frightened grin of pain was the only result. His 
companion went on : 

“ My dear Bernard, there is a foolish idea in some 
folk’s silly minds, that it is a natural law of the uni- 
verse that whatever outward seeming there may be, 
an Englishman’s unconquerable and constant inclin- 
ation is to fly at a Frenchman’s throat whenever he 
sees one, and fasten upon it like a mad dog. That 
is nonsense, you know. Look at you and me, for 
instance. Why nothing more sweet and delightful 
can be witnessed than our intercourse. Two brothers ! 
Tender towards each other as two sixteen-year-old 
maidens. Is it not so, my most beloved Bernard ? ” 

The most beloved Bernard tried to ease his aching 
shoulder by shifting the burden resting there an inch 
01 two, but the “ tender ” clasp in which it was held 
was so peculiarly tight that the effort only increased 
the pain instead of relieving it. His mind indulged in 
a passing reflection that if he had only been true to 
his exquisite taste in the fitness of things, the har- 
monies of colours, of furniture, of dress, of language 
and deportment, he would never have been in this 
disagreeable position. 

It was vraiment ridicule, he had often thought, to 
see him, so small and elegant, perpetually beside the 
broad-shouldered giant. It was not in good taste at 
all. Meantime the broad-shouldered giant went on 
with his speech : 


230 


Graliam McCall’s Victory . 


“Yes, my small, dear Bernard, I am really very 
fond of you, and so I am going to confide an opinion 
or two of mine to your ears. You may be charitable 
enough to impart them to others, if you think they 
seem to stand any chance of requiring a warning word. 
My first opinion is, that the present page of our history, 
moral and political, is being written with so many 
blots that not the fires of a dozen of your purgatories 
would suffice to burn them out. And my second 
opinion is, that any one who ventures to make a jest 
to me, of conduct that is disgracing my country, will 
run a pretty strong risk of feeling my resentment for 
some few hours, at least, after the words are uttered.” 

It was quite certain that unfortunate Bernard did. 
His shoulders felt as if they were afflicted with a sharp 
attack of rheumatism for days after his incautiously- 
expressed wish for an estate in Scotland. It was 
fortunate for Henry Savile that the Frenchman was 
not of a spiteful disposition. But he would have 
received precisely the same treatment on that occasion 
even if Savile had known that he was. 

But we must return now to the cottage-kitchen of 
Blair’s Farm, from which I might say we have been 
too long absent, had not the digression grown naturally 
out of the description of one of the inmates there. 

The group in that simple kitchen was a striking 
one, although the three members composing it were 
humble unlettered folks, regarded by their Southern 
brethren as scarcely a step removed from wild 
barbarians. 


CHAPTER XXIL 


ROUSED AT LAST. 

was a sign to ye, that an idle weapon is 
a useless one,” sajd James MacMichael, as 
he came and stood before William Blair 
and his shrinking wife. “ It was a sign to 
ye that the time is come for the blood o’ the Lord’s 
saints to be avenged.” 

He paused to take full note of his hearers’ attention 
ere he proceeded : “ Think ye that it will be the 
Lord’s will that such ane one as my brother Daniel, 
ane mon that was upright in all his dealings, holy in 
all his ways ; think ye that the Lord wills that he 
should be slain wi’ the Lord’s book in ’s hand, the 
Lord’s praises on his lips, and no note be taken o’ it ? 
What saith the Lawgiver in his song o’ inspiration — 
‘Rejoice, O ye nations, with his people; for he 
will avenge the blood of his servants, and will 
render vengeance to his adversaries.’ What saith 
the Psalmist — ‘ Let God arise, let his enemies be 
scattered ; let them also that hate him flee before 
him. As smoke is driven away, so drive them away: 



*3 * 


Graham Me Call' s Victory. 


as wax melteth before the fire, so let the wicked 
perish at the presence of God ! ’ Ay ! an’ there is 
the answer besides, that cooms to follow the prayer.” 

And as he shouted out the words in a wild tone of 
exultation the brown of his pupils seemed, to Mary 
Blair’s fascinated gaze, to turn to a lurid red. She 
shuddered again at his eager acceptance of the 
solemn and awful threat : 

“ The Lord said, ‘ I will bring my people again 
from the depths of the sea, that thy foot may be 
dipped in the blood of thine enemies, and the tongue 
of thy dogs in the same/ M 

And then, becoming conscious of the scared look 
on the face of his female companion, he decided, 
whether moved by pity, policy, or contempt it would 
be hard to determine, to continue the discussion out 
of her hearing. 

By a swift movement he turned over to the other 
side of William Blair, linked his hand in his arm, and 
had drawn him forth from the sheltering roof once 
more, and from the waiting meal, before Mary was 
thoroughly aware of his manoeuvre. 

Poor creature ! It was trying enough to her to 
have to listen to the urgings brought to bear upon 
her husband, to run into yet greater dangers than his 
steady adherence to the Covenant entailed upon him 
every hour of his life. But she found it still harder 
to stand there, watching the two men from the 
window, and hearing nought that passed between 
them. 


Roused at Last. 


2 33 


At last they came slowly in-doors again, and she 
caught her husband’s last words on entering : 

“It is settled then. You let me know to-morrow 
night when our Western brethren expect to be here, 
on their road towards Edinburgh, and I shall prepare 
at once to join you.” 

Obeying an irresistible impulse Mary darted forward 
and threw her arms about him, as though by force to 
hold him back from the purposed enterprise. For a 
moment her husband’s face softened, and he kissed 
her hair, cheeks, forehead, folding her to his breast, 
as closely as she had clasped him. But it was for the 
moment only. With a stamp of the foot, as though 
to remind himself that the present was no time for 
weakness, he loosened his hold, and almost roughly 
pushed the clinging woman away. 

“ Mary,” he said sternly, “ verily I am ashamed for 
thee ! This is nane the way thou and I saw Mistress 
McCall send forth her husband for the Cause lang 
syne.” 

“ Sent him forth to his death,” murmured Mary in 
a voice choked with sobs, but her husband went on 
unheeding. 

“ She was but a bit girl then, nane but joost ower 
her twenty years, and she bade him be gone to the 
battle wi’ a smile on her face to cheer him to his 
duty. She might ha’ been pardoned for willing to 
haud him, for she was young, but thou and I grow 
auld— ” 

“Hech then, stop, for I winna listen to thee” 


*34 


Graham McCall's Victory . 


exclaimed Mary at this point, the flush of indignation 
doing battle with the paleness of her grief. “What 
has age to do wi’ luve, mon ? If it has aught for 
thee it has nought for me, so come ben the table and 
say thy grace, and eat, and coom to a better mind. 
The vengeance o’ the Lord will truly be poured oot 
upo’ those wha ha’ turned sweet into sour in our land. 
But He needs na’ thy hand to hold the vials o’ His 
wrath.” 

But a woman is but a woman, however clear- 
headed and right-minded she may be. And she is 
very much a woman indeed, so to say, and only a 
woman, in men’s estimation, when her opinion is not 
altogether moulded upon theirs. “ Weak-minded, poor 
thing, can’t grasp the matter, you know, that’s it.” 
Otherwise of course, if she were only clever enough 
to understand, her opinion must necessarily be the 
same as her superior’s to a hair’s-breadth. 

But when her opinion is diametrically opposed to 
the men’s ? When what ? When she sets up one of 
her own ? — Oh there, drop such an absurd discussion. 
We are sick of it. When she does that, and attempts 
to argue for her opinion, it just proves that she is an 
idiot, poor thing, and what good can be done to any 
one by discussing idiots. 

William Blair and James MacMichael did not say 
all this, of course. Indeed it must be confessed that 
Blair did not quite think it all, but then MacMichael 
did, and at the present juncture his was the ruling 
mind, 


Roused at Last. 


*35 


Three days later there was a sort of rabble army 
collected, marching along to Edinburgh, gatheringas it 
marched, till some say .hat at one time the insurrection 
of 1666 counted its adherents by thousands. Rebel 
thousands they were called then, but, if you have 
read straight on to the present page of this tale, you 
have discovered that they as much deserved to be 
called rebels as your faithful dog would deserve such 
a name, if he continued to bark in defence of your 
goods and chattels according to long teaching, even 
though you took to kicking, beating, and starving 
him, and at last he sat up and howled a remonstrance 
against your barbarous injustice. 

I saw a drunken mother beat her child the other 
day for crying because, in one of her stumbles, she 
had knocked it into the gutter, and she addressed it 
as, “ You rebel, you ! ” 

In Charles the Second’s reign there were a good 
many drunken men, whatever condition the women 
may have been in. The year 1666, you remember, 
was the year of the great fire of London. That fire 
is said to have been lighted by a sugar-baker in the 
first instance, arad it probably sweetened air that had 
grown foul with the plague. But the fire that spread 
from the west of Scotland to the Pentland Hills was 
set burning by a vinegar distillery of oppression which 
had overrun the country, and had soured every on 2 it 
touched. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

TURNING THE TABLES . 

LE marching upon Edinburgh there 
a thing to be done upon which all the 
small collected body of insurgents 
s equally intent. They would get at 
the root of the evil tree very soon, if possible, but 
before anything else was attempted there was a 
particularly obnoxious branch to be got rid of. 

Upon this point William Blair and James Mac- 
Michael in particular were most resolute, although 
MacMichael’s wishes went further in vindictive hate 
than Blair’s. It was MacMichael’s reverend brother 
who had been killed by the tyrant, Sir James Turner, 
and according to his present views it was an actual 
duty to slay one who had wilfully slain a saint of the 
Lord. 

But it was well enough to say — “ Let us first of all 
seize the savage commander.” 

How were they going to do it, became the 
question. For he was a commander, and of a set 



Turning the Tables . 237 

of well-disciplined men too, and still more, well- 
armed ones besides, whilst these amateur soldiers 
were many of them without weapons at all. How- 
ever, at the outset favour seemed to attend their 
purpose. They fell in with a small detachment of 
twelve of the hated fine-collectors, and being of 
sufficient numbers already to overpower them, they 
bound them, despoiled them of their swords and 
pistols, and shared the eagerly-desired spoil between 
them. 

“But for yourself, MacMichael,” said one of the 
party to him, as he handed the arms around ; “ you 
have kept nought for yourself, mon, and braw as your 
ain arm o’ flesh may be, it will no reach sae far, nor 
fear the enemy sae much, as a pistol wi’ a bullet 
rammed inside.” 

“ Maybe so,” was the answer, with a pair of 
frowning brows bent upon the speaker. “But ye 
need na fash yoursel’ for me ; I gae not empty- 
handed to the frae.” 

And with the words he stepped behind some 
bushes close by, and returned to his astonished 
comrades with an implement of warfare as novel 
as it was formidable, if wielded by such a Hercules 
as its present owner. He looked around at the circle 
of wondering faces, and then back at his tremendous 
weapon with a sinister smile. 

“Ay,”* he said in ominous tones, “I admit, 

* From facts noted in ‘ Gleanings from the Mountains,’ by 
the Rev. R. Simpson, of Sanquhar. 


238 Graham McCall's Victory . 


Donald, that a pistol-bullet may carry further, but I 
would recommend them that are no yet tired o’ their 
lives to keep a few yards aff frae me and my Galloway 
flail, when I once begin to swirl it around my heid.” 

A low but universal murmur of assent showed 
that all who composed that group could appreciate 
the recommendation. The handstaff of the flail was 
at least five feet in length, and made of the stout 
tough ash-wood. The “ soople,” that part which 
strikes the barn-floor, was of iron, about three feet 
long, and made with three joints. It was indeed a 
deadly weapon if wielded by an arm well skilled in 
its use, and muscular. 

By means of the iron joints of the “ soople ” it 
was fitted like a thong to enfold the body of a man, 
and to crush his ribs after the manner of a boa- 
constrictor ! No swordsman could cope with any 
chance of success against an assailant armed with this 
Galloway flail. 

“Ye did weel to keep that for your ain share,” said 
the man who had first spoken on the matter; “you 
ha’ made a choice that proves ye no blate, James.” 

The touch of envious admiration in his voice went 
a long way to prove his opinion, at any rate, of its 
superlative merits for present purposes. But when 
MacMichael reluctantly offered to resign it in his 
favour he shook his head. 

“ Na, na, James, haud to it yoursel’, mon, ye were 
ay the best at its use in your ain threshing-floor, and I 
doobt na ye’ll be so in the threshing-floor o’ the Lord,” 


Turning the Tables. 


2 39 


“Amen,” muttered MacMichael with stern gravity, 
and it was with a no less reverent gravity that the 
words had been spoken to which he thus gave assent. 
In these people’s own ideas they were fulfilling a strict 
duty, as I have already reminded you, in undertaking 
this expedition to rid their land of its oppressors. 

Being now fairly equipped with the needful weapons 
of war, the insurgents made no further delay in pro- 
ceeding to the execution of the first portion of the 
plan agreed upon between them. Speed in whatever 
they did was one of the chief essentials to success, 
for they were surrounded by spies on every side. 
The more worthless amongst their own numbers, 
even, were perpetually being bribed to betray their 
neighbours and acquaintances. It was almost a 
marvel that no one contrived to win gold and good- 
will from Sir James Turner by letting him know of 
the threatened danger in time to make his escape. 

It may have been that the unjust steward of the 
hard laws was too much feared, hated, and distrusted, 
for even spies to put faith in his promises of reward 
for information. But however it was, the Covenanters 
were there before he had settled upon any mode of 
defence, or had even contrived to arrange for what 
is said to be yet better than presence of mind 
sometimes, namely, absence of body. 

The first intimation of the business on hand was 
rather startling. Flemming presented himself before 
his commander. 

“If you please, Captain—^” 


240 


Graham McC all's Victory . 


A tremendous scowl and a volley of abuse stopped 
his mouth before he could get any further. The truth 
was the Captain was filling his own mouth just at the 
minute with his early dinner, of precisely such juicy 
slices of prime sirloin of beef as he had told Henry 
Savile were the edibles most to his taste ; and he 
had no wish to hear any news that should interrupt 
his half-hour’s enjoyment. 

But as the Covenanters were not particularly 
acquainted with the English officer’s dinner-hour, 
and might not have been disposed to treat it with 
much regard if they had been, they came tearing 
along, a body of men, gaunt, stern, eager, with a 
merciful forbearance deep down in their hearts for 
even their most cruel enemies, which Sir James 
Turner would have been wholly unable to compre- 
hend. But the fierce looks and wild gestures, which 
were visible on the surface, were a book for the 
dullest capacity to be able to read, if not altogether 
to understand. 

Flemming had had more than enough rebuffs of 
late for his temper to bear very well. He had ridden 
in from a reconnoitring errand as fast as a fleet horse 
aided by the spur could bring him. But after being 
sworn at for appearing in the presence of his superior 
officer without a summons, and at an unwelcome 
moment, he closed his lips in a sullen silence, and 
registered a private vow that he would henceforth 
thwart him in everything that offered a safe op- 
portunity. 


Turning the Tables . 


241 


Meanwhile a second messenger dashed without 
ceremony into the presence of the diner, and with 
such disorder in his manner and haste in his looks 
that the officer began to believe there might be 
something of more importance to be attended to, 
perhaps, than his dinner, and the second outburst 
of fierce words died away, almost before the first had 
been uttered, into a comparatively mild demand to 
know what was happening. 

Flemming would have given him a sensible answer, 
the other frightened creature only gasped out : 
“ They’ll tear us limb from limb! You’ll see, sir, 
they’ll tear us limb from limb.” 

Sir James Turner seized his drinking-flagon, and 
flung it at the man. “ Fool ! Idiot ! — I’ll do it myself 
if you don’t speak out. What ‘they’ are you 
gibbering about ? ” 

“An immense, well-armed body of sturdy Cove- 
nanters,” put in Flemming, calmly. “ They were nearly 
here when I came to you five minutes since. They 
appear to be wrought up to a pitch capable of any 
enormities.” 

For his own part he scarcely believed that last 
statement, but it was a glorious pin’s-head of revenge 
to see the autocratic officer actually show signs of 
apprehension. Flemming was quite willing, for that 
gratification, to have the half-emptied plate dashed at 
his head, with a second edition of impious threats, 
for not having told his news sooner. 

Perhaps some glimmering idea of the real state of 

Q 


242 


Graham McCall's Victory. 


the case dawned upon Sir James’s mind at last, for 
having satisfied his unreasonable passion with this 
violent ebullition, he hastily composed his countenance 
to a more decent aspect, and condescended to attempt 
a hurried consultation with his sagacious follower as 
to what steps prudence suggested should be taken in 
the present unforeseen emergency. 

But there was no time now for councils. The 
antagonists were upon them, and as the dragoons 
dashed forth to stem the oncoming torrent they were 
met by the foremost of the insurgents — the man they 
had wounded while he was engaged in an act of 
mercy, and the brother of the man they had un- 
lawfully killed. 

“ Shoot the dogs down ! ” shouted the dragoon 
officer. 

All very well to shout that. The “dogs” were 
already shoulder to shoulder with them, wrenching 
the muskets from their hands, flinging themselves and 
their arms together with a resounding thud to the 
ground, whilst that awful-looking James MacMichael 
was cleaving a way for himself, with his equally awful- 
’ooking weapon, to where Sir James stood, surrounded 
by a group of his men who were attempting, for 
hoi our’s sake rather than affection, to shield him from 
the enemy. 

Dash, crash, came the ponderous flail as the giant 
arm whirled it around the head, bringing it down 
hither and thither for yards around with terrific force, 
well-nigh tearing an arm from a socket in one 


Turning the Tables . 


2 43 


direction, the iron joints of the soople cracking down 
the next instant upon a leg that cracked in ominous 
answer, as the owner fell with a shriek of agony. 
Round the body of another, crushing out the breath 
with a final gasp, protruding tongue and starting 
eyeballs telling of the terrible death of strangulation. 

And all the wild moments as they passed marked 
by a shower of bullets aimed at the haggard, lowering- 
browed wielder of the deadly weapon, and all to no 
purpose. On, step by step, moved the giant Covenanter 
wholly uninjured. Ceaselessly, swiftly, as though 
worked by some monster machine rather than by 
a human arm, the wide-reaching flail cleared the 
way of all obstacles. 

Matchlocks clicked. There was the spark, the 
smoke, but some began at last to believe that by 
some magical interference their bullets must be 
transformed into air. Unless, indeed, the giant body 
opposite absorbed them harmlessly, being no mortal, 
but a spirit fighting on the side of the Covenanters. 

That notion, communicated from one to the other 
by the free-masonry of looks almost as much as by 
rapidly-breathed words, completed the panic. 

“ No use trying to stand up against demons or 
angels,” ejaculated a dragoon, as he set the example 
of throwing away his arms, and then turned to fly, as 
he had many a time of late helped to make whole 
troops of poor innocent, helpless creatures, old men, 
weak women, and little children fly, from their ran- 
sacked homes and trodden fields and despoiled barns, 

Q 2 


244 


Graham McCall's Victory . 


to any wretched shelter the mountains and moors 
could give. 

But in the present instance it was no use to attempt 
to fly. The insurgents were too many and too de- 
termined to allow any of this especial well-known 
body of dragoons to escape. 

“Fetch him back,” exclaimed MacMichael, per- 
ceiving the attempt at retreat, in the midst of his own 
activity. 

“ Fetch him back,” echoed other voices. And as 
MacMichael enforced his order by a sudden onslaught 
upon another soldier who was attempting flight, which 
resulted in arresting the man, fainting with the pain 
of a badly broken arm, the rest of his companions appa- 
rently came to the conclusion that they might as well 
trust to the mercy of their captors by yielding, as risk 
such fierce treatment in a fruitless attempt to evade it. 

The whole affair had lasted scarcely more than 
twenty minutes when Sir James Turner bound, and in 
the charge of William Blair, was being ignominiously 
carried as a prisoner to a wretched little shieling, 
already well known to the reader as the habitation of 
old Elspeth Spence. 

The two days spent upon the road thither were 
horrible enough to the imperious-tempered man, 
although the stern, preoccupied Covenanters bestowed 
no addition of insulting words to aggravate the shame 
of his position. But the case, in this respect, was 
widely different when he became an inmate of old 
Elspeth’s squalid abode. 


Turning the Tables. 


*45 


Utter comfortlessness, and a diet of ill-cooked 
oatmeal, might claim for itself, fairly enough, to be 
accepted patiently for a while as part of a soldier’s 
natural portion, and all in the day’s work, as the 
saying goes. But — ! old Elspeth Spence’s tongue ! ! 

It is perfectly safe for me to declare that if un- 
limited doses of that tongue were always to be part 
of every soldier’s portion, there would be no such 
thing possible as a voluntary army, and even Bismarck 
himself would find it almost impossible to keep his 
compulsory one in a state of efficiency. The penalties 
for desertion would be reckoned light in comparison 
to the infliction of that ceaseless and untiring tongue 
wagging day and night at a man’s expense. 

William Blair, and his companion in guarding the 
prisoner, both tried from time to time to stem the 
torrent, out of mingled compassion for the captive 
and themselves, but all efforts were useless. And 
they were too anxious to learn tidings of their 
companions’ further doings to have heart for angry 
arguments with the spiteful- tempered old woman. 




CHAPTER XXIV. 

GENERAL THOMAS DALZIEL. 

IR JAMES TURNER was a prisoner, that 
was true enough, but the poor Covenanters 
soon found that they had little cause to 
congratulate themselves on the fact, when 
his place was supplied by General Thomas Dalziel. 

You have heard some of the charges brought 
against the Knight, but of the General it is said that, 
“ of all the foreign adventurers who had brought evil 
ways from foreign institutions and practices, he had 
brought home the largest stock of ferocity and 
rapacity. Others had chiefly served in the centre of 
Europe, and the Thirty Years’ War. They learned 
enough of evil there ; but Dalziel had been doing 
the work of the barbarous Muscovite far off at the 
back of Europe.” 

Of course it goes without saying that it did not 
tend to make him more merciful to the Covenanters 
“ that he was an honest and ardent fanatic for royalty. 
Of this he carried about a perpetual sign in a beard 
which had grown since the death of his beloved 
master, Charles I.” 



General Thomas Dalziel. 


247 


But, in spite of all th : s, the appearance of this 
General Dalziel was such an intense delight to the 
boys of Charles the Second’s time, that for the sake 
of the boys of the reign of Queen Victoria, I will give 
the description of him quoted by Mr. Hill Burton in 
his most enjoyable history. Cruel monster as he 
was, by the education of circumstances, he cannot, 
one imagines, have been wholly bad at heart, any 
more than most people are. 

He who stands at the door and knocks, even up to 
the very end, causes some stir to be made now and 
again, faint though it may be, and almost uncon- 
scious, to clear a corner for the offered guest. 

“ The Czar of Muscovy, under whose banner Dalziel 
fought courageously against the Turks and Tartars, 
for his great bravery and military conduct promoted 
him to the rank of General, and on his return to 
Scotland ordered a testimony of his services, in the 
most honourable terms, to pass the Great Seal. He 
was bred up very hardy from his youth,” says Captain 
Crichton, “ both in diet and clothing. He never wore 
boots, nor above one coat, which was close to his 
body, with close sleeves, like those we call jockey- 
coats. He never wore a peruke, nor did he shave 
his beard since the murder of King Charles I. In 
my time his head was bald, which 'he covered only 
with a beaver hat, the brim of which was not above 
three inches broad. His beard was white and bushy, 
and yet reached down almost to his girdle. He 
usually went to London once or twice a year, and 


248 


Graham McCall's Victory . 


then only to kiss the King’s hand, who had a great 
esteem for his worth and valour. His unusual dress 
and figure when he was in London, never failed to 
draw after him a great crowd of boys, who constantly 
attended at his lodgings, and followed him with 
huzzas as he went to Court or returned from it. 

“ As he was a man of humour he always thanked 
them for their civilities when he left them at the 
door to go in to the King, and would let them know 
exactly at what hour he intended to come out again, 
and return to his lodgings. When the King walked in 
the park attended by some of his courtiers, and Dalziel 
in his company, the same crowds would always be after 
him, showing their admiration of his beard and dress, 
so that the King could hardly pass on for the crowd. 

“Upon which His Majesty would make a pretence 
of great wrath with the old soldier for bringing such 
a rabble of boys together to stare at his queer 
costume, and request him (as Dalziel used to express 
it) to shave and dress like other Christians, to keep 
the poor bairns out of danger. All this could never 
prevail upon him to part with his beard ; but yet, in 
compliance to His Majesty, he went once to Court in 
the very height of the fashion ; but as soon as the 
King and those about him had laughed sufficiently 
at the strange figure he made, he resumed his usual 
habit, to the great joy of the boys, who had not 
discovered him in his fashionable dress.” 

There ! It does seem strange, drearily strange, 
that this man who so good-humouredly fell in with 


General Thomas Dalziel. 


249 


the fun and merriment of English boys should have 
so acted in the North as to make the bravest of 
Lowland Scotch boys turn pale, perchance, at the 
mere mention of his name. 

The Covenanters met with success at first sufficient 
to encourage more timid brethren to join the original 
company on the march towards Edinburgh, until 
their numbers amounted to about three thousand. 
But the strong reinforcements looked for from the 
eastern side of the kingdom never appeared, and 
while encouragement thus failed many things occurred 
to damp the ardour of their spirits, and to check 
their rising hopes. 

For one circumstance, the month was November. 
And I dare say you know very well that Scotland is 
one of those countries of which it is said that — “ No, 
it does not always rain there, because it sometimes 
snows.” The Scotch are a wonderfully hardy race, 
wonderfully abstemious and enduring when circum- 
stances appear to require or recommend those virtues, 
but even Scotchmen grow down-hearted when all the 
bare necessaries of life fail them ; and when these 
so-called hapless “rebels” came in sight of Edin- 
burgh, with all the appearance of power about it 
imparted by numbers and rich abundance, they began 
to understand the futility of any attempts on their 
part to subdue it. By crowds they began to return 
to their homes, and there was only a starveling band 
of about nine hundred left when General Dalziel at 
length encountered them at Rullion Green, and 


2 jo Graham Me Calf s Victory . 

effectually dispersed them, the Presbyterian peasantry 
of the east actually inflicting as much suffering upon 
their poor scattered brethren of the west, as did the 
cruel victorious army, during the early days of the 
flight. 

But the failure of hope, and a day’s defeat, were 
by no means the worst consequences of this forlorn 
expedition. “ The result of the affair was to strengthen 

the hands of the Government It had been 

peace, and was now war, which gave a large increase 
to the license of their conduct. They could plead 
that they were in an enemy’s country, where the 
distinction between those in arms and those peaceably 
disposed was too nice to be drawn by a rough soldier.” 

And it was not only “ rough soldiers ” who claimed 
the awful license to act with extra and most barbarous 
cruelty, for Courts, where calmness and reason are 
supposed to reign supreme, made themselves infamous 
by the scenes enacted in them in those days ; counsel 
and judges made their names synonymous with in- 
justice instead of justice, by their perversion of truth, 
brow-beating of witnesses, and the frequent condemn- 
ation of them for their extorted testimony. 

“ The trials that followed the affair of Pentland 
Hills were the first to become infamous by the free 
use of torture. The question of torture had been 
in use both in England and Scotland, but in both 
countries it was very odious. Two instruments were 
chiefly in use in Scotland. One was the boot, an iron 
cylinder in which the leg was placed, the infliction 


Ge?ieral Thomas Dalziel. 


251 


being by the hammering in of wooden wedges to the 
required point of injury and suffering. The other 
instrument was the thumbkin, which held the thumb 
tight while thin screws were run into the joint ; . an 
ingenious device for producing the greatest amount 
of suffering with the smallest instrument and the 
least labour.” 

Besides what was done to the poor victims, if they 
were brought prisoners to the bar of the Court of 
Justiciary, the Scots Estates took to trying and con- 
victing those who were not present to defend them- 
selves ; and then, when any of these condemned 
individuals were afterwards caught by any of their 
enemies, they were shot down, there and then, without 
mercy or deliberation. 

Those who had compassionately harboured them, 
or in any way ministered to their wants, were often 
treated in the same way, and if they were not actually 
killed, their homes and farms were pillaged to such 
a degree, by way of fine, that they were reduced to 
the verge of ruin. Frequently they were so utterly 
beggared that death from starvation ensued, if they 
were not able to meet with others who, in their turn, 
were willing to incur these tremendous risks for 
succouring them. 

And so, having thus briefly made you acquainted 
with the state of affairs, as affecting the Covenanters 
in general, you will better understand the position 
when we now turn to see how they affected the 
characters of our tale in particular. 


CHAPTER XXV. 

MARY BLAIR LEAVES TOO SOON. 


O, my dear lady, no. I beseech you lay 
no commands upon me to remain. At 
any hour he may return home, and 
cruelly hard it would seem to him if I 
were not there to comfort him.” 

It was Mary Blair who spoke. Not five minutes 
since she had presented herself at the McCalls’ 
cottage with a worn face, and questioning eyes, 
which had well-nigh pierced every nook and corner 
of the place before she had time to enter it. The 
search was fruitless. Her knees failed her, and she 
almost fell against the door-post for support. 

Mistress McCall hastened forward to her help, but 
the woman looked past her to her son. “ Oh ! 
Maister Ivie, dear, have ye seen William ? My 
William ? ” 

The very heart of love was in that “My,” as it 
came forth with a low, imploring wail from the 
trembling lips. 




Mary Blair leaves too Soon . 


*53 


Two or three weeks had passed since that evening 
rout of Pentland Hills, and nothing had been heard 
of William Blair by his poor wife. She now learnt 
that the McCalls also were equally ignorant of his 
fate. 

“ Have none of the party who have escaped been 
merciful enough to bring you any news ? ” asked 
Kate McCall, half in wonder, half in indignation. 

But the indignation was not merited. Several had 
been to visit the lonely wife, amongst others James 
MacMichael, with a double shadow of gloom upon 
his brow; and they had given her much information, 
only none about her husband. 

"MacMichael says that he is sure he was na’ o’ the 
twenty or so ’at were hangit in Edinbro’, and that 
is all ’at he can tell me. I thocht maybe when he 
did na’ coom hame that he wad ha’ sheltered here.” 

Mistress McCall shook her head sadly. “ Nay, 
Mary, you know that William will not enter any more 
'‘beneath my roof.” 

Mary Blair turned her face, gazing away over the 
winter-desolated moor. “ A mon may do much ’at is 
na sin, when he is fleeing for ’s life frae his enemies. 
But sin’ he is na - here, maybe he will be wending hame 
at last, and so I’ll e’en say good-day, and gang my 
ain ways thither too.” 

The lady put up her gentle hand, drawing the 
woman’s weary face round towards her again. 
“ Puir thing ! ” she said tenderly. “Ye are e’en tired 
now, and there is a wild storm blowing up. It has 


^54 


Graham McCall's Victory . 


been threatening since yesterday. You must e’en let 
me put you into my bed for a long rest, and to- 
morrow you shall return, if the roads permit.” 

Then came the cry with which this chapter opens, 
and as though she really feared that such physical 
or moral force might actually be exerted as should 
prevent her escape, if she delayed her departure any 
longer, she had scarcely pronounced her pitiful words 
— “if I were not there to comfort him,” than she 
fled away back towards the distant Blair’s Farm 
with a swiftness that might have almost defied even 
Ivie McCall’s fleet-footedness to catch her. 

An hour later both he and his mother heartily 
wished that he had made the attempt, and had 
successfully employed the powers of persuasion which 
the poor wife feared, for the brooding storm sud- 
denly burst over the country with wind and snow, 
and a darkness that made such a walk as lay before 
her doubly dangerous. 

“ If only Mary had come back to us,” murmured 
Mistress McCall, as she sat with hands forced to 
idleness by the early gloom. 

Ivie stood with his face pressed against the thick, 
dull glass of the narrow casement, peering into the 
dense falling mass, so soft and fragile, and yet so 
resistless in its might. A$ his mother spoke he 
suddenly bent his head, with a more strained effort 
to pierce that moving veil. He stood thus, silent and 
motionless, for some moments, and then left the 
window to hasten to the door. 


Mary Blair leaves too Soon . 


“ She has come back, mother dear. And time too, 
for she is struggling through the snow as if she had 
more to do in battling with it, even in this sheltered 
place, than she can manage.” 

However, the battle had been gained, for by the 
time he had succeeded in forcing the door open 
against its white barrier, the figure he had been 
watching had gained the threshold and made a dash 
within, the instant it was possible, without waiting 
for a welcome. But — 

“ Who is it ! ” exclaimed Kate McCall with a stifled 
cry. 

Whoever it was, it certainly was not Mary, unless 
she had changed the customary habit of her garb 
very much during the course of her walk, and also 
unless the snow-storm had added twelve inches to 
her height. But there came another cry from Ivie, 
quickly following his mother’s : 

“Who are They!" 

Darkness, the snow mantle, and within that outer 
covering a mass of plaid wrappings, had made 
everything indistinct, but as the logs on the hearth 
blazed up, and the snow was shaken off, it became 
apparent that two visitors had been admitted to the 
cottage, one man carrying the apparently lifeless 
body of another. 

“ Who are you ? ” gasped the involuntary hostess 
in an awed whi per. 

“ Do not let yourself suffer alarm, dear madam,” 
said a rich, deep voice, as its owner bowed. “You 


256 


Graham McCall’s Victory. 


have seen us both before. We are both friends. 
This poor fellow here on the floor is one of the 
most faithful you have, I believe.” 

Sobs from the lady, a great gulp to keep them 
down from Ivie, answered him. They had discovered 
the identity at length of one at least of the new- 
comers to their home. 

Of his own free-will William Blair had never entered 
the cottage while he believed its inmates to be living 
in violation of their duty, but he lay there now, 
inanimate before them, brought thither without his 
own consciousness. 

“And you know me also, do you not?” asked the 
second visitor, after he had allowed his companions a 
short interval to regain control. “ I am not altogether 
a stranger to you, am I ? ” 

A slight smile flitted across Kate McCall’s face 
even in the midst of her emotion, as she replied : “ I 
scarce can find in my mind how I ought to answer 
you. I have never yet seen your face, neither do 
I know your name. Yet I have learnt one thing,” 
she continued more gravely, “ of more consequence 
than that ; you are a friend of those who suffer, I 
believe.” 

“ It was foretold by one who lay dying on a battle- 
field, that I should be so,” was the quiet reply. “ And 
I have ever since held the prophecy for a command. 
I hope I have not delayed too long in bringing this 
poor fellow to your care; but it has been a matter 
of supreme difficulty, owing to his weak state from 


Mary Blair leaves too Soon. 257 

recent illness. And the search after him has been 
the more keen from the part he has taken in the 
custody* of Sir James Turner. There is a price put 
upon his head.” 

“ Bloodthirsty wretches ! ” burst forth Ivie. “ I 
marvel that they let not loose amongst us ravening 
mad dogs, and kill us if we muzzle them, because it 
pleases them that the dogs should be free to bite.” 

And then he bent lower over the deathly cold 
hands which he was striving, as diligently almost 
as Mary had done some weeks ago, to warm back 
to life. 

That night the stalwart, healthy visitor remained 
at the cottage as well as the invalid whom he had 
brought thither, for even his giant vigour had been 
somewhat overstrained, and he did not feel quite 
equal to a second immediate combatting with the 
steady, blinding onslaught of snowflakes, that had 
already succeeded in completely blotting out all 
roads and landmarks. 

Fortunately just before dawn the downfall ceased, 
and the Englishman took his leave of the pair who 
had been watching all night beside their slowly 
recovering patient. 

“ I would offer to let his poor wife know of his 
whereabouts,” he said, as he bent down for a last look 
at Blair. “But for the same reason that I have 
avoided taking him there I would avoid doing any- 
thing to bring her here. She and the farm are both 

closely watched, and ceaselessly. Even this cottage 

R 


258 Graham Me C alt s Victory. 


will doubtless come in for another searching, sooner 
or later, so I would advise your friend’s removal to a 
safer hiding-place as speedily as possible.” 

Ivie stretched out his hand with an irresistible 
impulse of entreaty. “ If you would abide here you 
would be protection for us all.” 

But the stranger shook his head. " Indirectly and 
unsuspected I can do a good deal, but directly, and 
my efforts known, I should be worse than powerless. 
I go now South, to the Court in London, to prevent 
any shadow of suspicion clinging to my name. A 
few weeks hence I hope to revisit the North and you. 
May God grant that calm may have returned to this 
poor land, and that nothing may occur to disturb 
your peace. Once again, dear madam, let me crave 
your prayers.” 

And so he stepped across the threshold, and was 
gone, little dreaming that he should never see that 
home again, and that he, himself, was become the 
innocent cause of its destruction. That in rescuing 
one he had brought ruin upon others, for whose sake 
he would readily have borne and risked far more. 

He had said most truly that Blair’s Farm was 
closely watched, but it had never entered his mind 
to think whether spies might not be also about the 
neighbourhood of the McCalls’ humble little cottage. 
As he stepped out into the dim morning twilight he 
was taken note of by the sharp, blinking eyes of that 
wretched little informer, Birsy the cobbler. 

This miserable specimen of humanity, as deformed 


Mary Blair leaves too Soon. 


2 59 


in mind as he was in body, had found residence in his 
old neighbourhood disagreeable to him, as well as no 
longer profitable, since the seizure and death of Daniel 
MacMichael. Besides, he went in deadly terror of 
James the giant, who had openly declared that if 
the sorrowful circumstances should at any time be 
traced undoubtedly to Birsy, he should, in his turn, 
learn what it was like to be seized by those who 
hated him, that then they would institute a law court 
of their own to try him, and thereafter punish him 
lawfully, as a spy, with death. 

Whether that culminating act would be lawful or 
unlawful, Birsy fully credited MacMichael with meaning 
what he said, and, seeing that trade was so bad also, 
he decided to flit elsewhere, his choice falling upon 
a remote hut on the moor, about a mile from the 
McCalls ? A desolate place enough, and unless he 
expected the rabbits to turn customers, and let him 
dine upon them afterwards, one would have thought 
that he now ran more risk of death from his own 
choice of quarters, than he had done before from a 
brother’s vengeance. But, as it happened, he was not 
dependent upon the shoemaking business he might 
obtain, just now, and neither did he have his own will 
only to consult in deciding where to fix his abode for 
the time. 

Archbishop Sharp had not too hearty a good-will 
to his clerical brother of Dunblane, whose noble 
character and Christian charity were in such con- 
demnatory contrast to his own. And in the very 

R 2 


260 


Graham McCall's Victory . 


nick of time Dr. Sharp got hold of this conveniently 
small, and equally conveniently unscrupulous, cobbler 
spy. 

“ If you find me out anything to the discredit of 
him yonder, you shall find that you have cobbled 
your own fortunes to such good purpose as they shall 
need no further mending,” was the significant hint. 
“And mind you mark well if yon peaceable and well- 
ordered palace be permitted to be secretly a house 
of refuge for any of these rebels against our laws, and 
most gracious liege, His Majesty King Charles.” 

Employer and employed were worthy of each other. 
About as worthy to be allowed to walk upright on 
their feet, in the noble attitude of human beings, as 
the boys who nearly drowned a small, most pitiful- 
faced dog yesterday, and smashed its poor forepaws 
with stones. 

Birsy had been some days in his new abode without 
meeting with any excitement or reward for his inde- 
fatigable pryings around, when he at last caught sight 
that morning of poor Mary Blair on her way from the 
cottage. He had seen her once with her husband, 
the man for whom one of the chief rewards was 
offered. He noticed her haste to put distance between 
herself and the home she had just quitted, and 
instantly concluded, before the fact, that William was 
secreted there, and that his wife feared to betray the 
circumstance by being found in the neighbourhood. 

Hungering to secure the reward, he crept down to 
the little sheltered valley instantly, and cautiously 


Mary Blair leaves too Soon . 2,61 

peered in at all the windows, narrowly escaping dis- 
covery by Ivie, who took his post at one of the case- 
ments, to watch the oncoming storm, just as Birsy 
hurriedly withdrew. 

Malignant rage and disappointment doubly dis- 
figured the cobbler’s uncouth face as he retraced his 
toilsome way in the teeth of the biting blast up the 
moor. Had he caught sight of the expected prize, 
satisfied avarice would have so warmed him inwardly 
that he would scarcely have noticed the wind out- 
wardly. But so far from being gratified by the 
hoped-for spectacle he had actually caught the sound 
of a cry from Ivie to his mother. 

“ Oh ! mother, where can poor William Blair be ! 
If only we could get some tidings of him it would be 
a relief. I would rather know the worst at once than 
have things go on like this.” 

The exclamation had had far too genuine a ring 
in it to be a counterfeit, and Birsy felt that, so fully, 
as he trudged with difficulty up the brae, that for the 
time he gave up all thought of paying any further 
heed to the McCalls. Indeed, the idea occurred to 
him more than once, as he sat meditating during the 
dark day, that he had better recommend to his patron, 
when the next messenger came by, a second shifting 
of his quarters, for the Bishop was laid up with an 
attack of illness, and there was little coming or going 
of any kind at present at his palace. For what there 
was he could not be held responsible. 

But night came. The day had been dull, but the 


262 


Graham McCall's Victory . 


night was pitch-dark. The day had been cold, but 
the night was bitter with a penetrating chill that 
seemed to freeze the very bones inside a body. Birsy 
was too hungry to sleep away the dreary, crawling 
hours, and if he had not been too hungry he would 
have been too cold. He had plenty of money now 
to feed himself, and clothe himself warmly and well. 
But his ill-gotten gains had brought a curse with 
them. He could not bear to part with them, not 
even for his own comfort. He suffered privations 
now that he had never had to bear before. He lay 
crouched in a cowering, shivering heap, on his straw 
bed, griped with cold and hunger, and nourishing just 
the very thing he should have starved. He warmed 
and fed his evil nature with evil thoughts. He so 
worked upon himself, that had any one been able to 
read the inner workings of his brain, they might have 
discovered an actually half-formed idea there, that 
William Blair most certainly deserved hanging now, 
whatever he might have done before, for inflicting 
such a disappointment upon him. 

But the slow night passed on. By degrees dawn 
began to give faint signs. The snow ceased to 
thicken the air with its dense fall, and Birsy’s thoughts 
fell into a new train, eager once more, and with dawning 
hopes. Mary Blair must have been at the cottage 
for some purpose, and certainly not to say that her 
husband was at home. That place was being far too 
strictly watched for so much as a rat to creep in 
unperceived. 


Mary Blair leaves too Soon. 263 


Perhaps that lad had, after all, not only nearly 
seen him peering in, but had quite done so, and his 
speech about William Blair had only been a blind, in 
spite of its sound of truth. Indeed the state of the 
case certainly must be so, Birsy decided at last, and 
at any rate it would do no harm to steal down again, 
and make a second effort at discoveries. 

Even the smooth snow he would have to tread did 
not deter him. His feet were so small they would 
but leave traces as of some child’s feet, and if he were 
tracked to his lair it would not greatly signify. At 
least — that was to say if he were tracked by any but 
one man. And out in the midst of the snow that 
freezing December day he grew hot as with a burning 
fever, and prayed, or rather he strove to pray, for he 
and prayer were too great strangers to meet all in a 
moment at his wish, and that a wish prompted by no 
penitence, no shame, no grace at all, only deadly, 
bodily fear. 

But, from the door of the cottage to which he had 
approached so perilously near, strode the muffled 
figure of a man, whom he believed he should be able 
to recognize in any disguise for his avowed mortal 
enemy. 

Utterly oblivious to the pain of torn face and 
hands, he plunged himself, with the desperation of 
his terror, into the midst of the thorns of the gorse 
bushes, crouching low till he should see in which 
direction the thickly enwrapped individual would 
bend his steps. 


264 


Graham McCall's Victory . 


Even James MacMichael’s fury against the base 
informer would have been in great part satisfied had 
he been able to know of the sufferings the miserable 
creature endured for the space of two minutes, which 
seemed to lengthen themselves out to two days. 

But “ time and the hour run through the roughest 
days,” and the roughest minutes also. Birsy’s sus- 
pense and terror came to an end as the shrouded 
giant, having climbed the brae for a few yards, turned 
short off into a narrow sheep-track, and took a path 
followed by the shepherds belonging to a neighbour- 
ing village, whose inhabitants were well known to be 
favourable to the Covenanters, and much given to 
providing them with shelter and the necessaries of 
life. 

This choice of direction would have confirmed the 
cobbler’s suspicions, had they needed it. But he was 
as thoroughly convinced that he had been watching 
James Mac Michael, as if the man had, himself, declared 
it to be so, in MacMichael’s own well-known harsh 
stern voice. 




CHAPTER XXVI, 

ALAS / 

N my power — in my power — in My power.” 
The last “My” came out with a perfect 
shriek. 

If the Scotch superlative belief in in- 
visible imps of mischief, in fairy beings of special 
spite and malevolence, could be at any time justified 
it might have been when the impish Birsy stood on 
the open moor screaming out those words. 

The object of his alarm had walked away in one 
direction, and for the past half-hour he had been 
hastening along the opposite road towards a goal 
he had often been reminded that he was to seek, 
should he see fit occasion for it. 

He had just reached the summit of the rising 
moorland, and close beneath him lay what he desired. 
A truly fiendish delight seized him, and, pressed for 
time as he felt he might be for the attainment of his 
purpose, he still could not resist the temptation to 
indulge in a brief minute of premature exultation 
over the destruction of his dreaded foe. 



266 


Graham McCall's Victory. 


Just below him there were the dragoons. Not ten 
minutes more, scarcely five minutes in spite of the 
snow, and he should be amongst them telling his tale, 
and guiding them, one detachment to the last night’s 
resting-place, another to the refuge sought to-day. 

Meantime he danced in the thick, pure white snow, 
and shrieked out his exultation — a hideous little 
figure, and his clothes filthy and ragged, and his face 
all streaked with dirt and blood and scratches, and 
his fingers stretched forth with a sort of half-clutch 
of eagerness, instinct with the heart’s cruelty. 

He had betrayed the one brother, sick, saint-like, 
sorely persecuted for his faith’s sake, to death ; now 
he gloated over the near prospect of betraying the 
second brother to a like fate, to be aggravated by 
yet greater barbarities, as he was accused of greater 
crimes. 

Birsy knew perfectly what ghastly measure of 
punishment, so-called, awaited James MacMichael, 
were he caught by the soldiers under one of General 
Dalziel’s officers, and his malevolent joy increased as 
he thought of it. 

“You threatened me with judgment, you threatened 
me with death. You made me tremble and shake and 
shiver with fear. And now, Ah ! ha ! Now you are 
in my power, in my power — in My power.” 

This is an awful picture, is it not, this of this 
terribly base, cowardly, cruel cobbler Birsy. Take 
care that none of you, yourselves, bear a shadow of a 
resemblance to it. Not long ago I was walking along 


Alas! 


267 


a London street when I heard a sharp, disagreeable 
voice exclaim : 

“ Ah ! you threatened to punch my head, didn’t 
you ? Now I’ll just punch yours, and let you know as 
I’ve done it too, before I leave off.” 

A quick cry of pain the next moment told that 
he had begun. He was not able to carry out all his 
threat, happily, because a man passing at the time 
caught the “punching” boy’s hand, and set the 
punched boy free. 

“ Now, you young bully,” he said, “ suppose I let fly 
at you ? ” 

The boy immediately began to cry and howl. “ He 
hit me first.” 

“Yes,” admitted the other sturdily, “because he 
whacked my little sister over the arm with his hoop- 
stick.” 

“ How often did you hit him ? ” 

The brother stared rather. “ How often ! Why, 
only once, just to show him, you know, sir, that I 
wasn’t going to stand such a thing as that. I had to 
leave off then anyhow, because — because — ” 

And the bright-faced boy hung his head rather 
sheepishly. “ I — I had — to try to stop my little 
sister crying. She’s only a little bit of a thing, and 
soft-hearted, mother says. And then Joe there come 
up behind, and caught a fellow unawares.” 

Humph. There are some boys that sisters like to 
mend gloves for, and make paste the exact proper 
thickness for amateur book-binding. And there are 


268 


Graham McCall's Victory . 


some boys who make uncomfortably correct shadow- 
likenesses of Birsy, the spy cobbler. Bah ! This 
kind ought to be all planted on desert islands where 
cocoa-nut trees and vines don’t grow, and where there 
are neither monkeys, parrots, nor palm-trees. 

But there is Birsy all this time with his scratched 
hands and scratched face, and torn clothes, looking 
down at the instruments of his revenge. He can 
distinctly see them shovelling away the snow around 
their temporary place of sojourn. He wonders how 
many of the rebels will get taken, shot, and buried in 
the snowdrifts during the course of the winter, and as 
he is so wondering he stumbles over something, and 
nearly gets buried in one himself. 

Birsy recovered his footing, and looked down at the 
obstruction. It was a bird lying there, frozen to death. 
It looked so beautiful with its dark, smooth plumage 
on the white ground, and so pitiful. Birsy sent it 
dashing against the jutting crags, with a savage kick. 
Then he continued his way, congratulating himself 
now on the intense cold which had frozen the snow 
hard enough to bear his weight. 

On the return journey he made the soldiers carry 
him up the brae, craftily declaring that they could 
never find their way without him, and that he could 
never find strength to be their guide that day, if he 
had to use his own feet. It was at any rate tolerably 
evident that under those circumstances he must be a 
slow one, and so he was allowed his will, for his 
anxiety that James MacMichael should be secured 


Alas / 


26 9 


was quite matched by the officer’s desire to get hold 
of Blair, through whom the service had suffered such 
indignity in the person of Sir James Turner. 

The mere idea of a commander of dragoons being 
the prisoner of a rabble of those beggarly Covenanters 
was insupportable ! 

Those same beggarly Covenanters, because of their 
holy Covenant with God, because of their deep de- 
votion to His holy laws, had spared the life of the 
tyrant when he was in their power, although he had 
never spared theirs, but that was a mere matter of 
detail, not worthy to be even so much as taken note 
of in men’s minds, much less mentioned as admirable, 
or an extenuating circumstance. Their daring to 
inflict such a disgrace was altogether intolerable, 
without thinking of anything further, and the disgrace 
must be wiped out with blood. Much had been 
already shed for the purpose, and more should be. 

It was in this spirit that the officer and his men 
drew in sight of the McCall’s cottage. Having guided 
them thus far, Birsy came to a halt by his own desire, 
while the rest of the party hastened forward into the 
little valley. He had no wish to be recognized as 
the informer, by the Covenanters, when it could be 
avoided. He had already experienced the dis- 
agreeables of being known for one. He was content 
now to take up a position whence he could see all 
that went on, without much probability of being 
discovered by eyes that knew nothing of his near 
neighbourhood. 


270 


Graham McCall's Victory . 


So intently were Ivie and his mother occupied 
with their suffering patient, who was still scarcely 
conscious, that the soldiers were already within a 
hundred yards of the cottage before the inmates 
became aware of their approach. 

The forgetful shout of one of the men to his unruly 
horse led Ivie to glance through the window. For a 
moment he seemed paralyzed. 

“ Mother ! ” he gasped — “ Look ! n 

Then he stooped low over the bed, and whispered 
in low, clear tones — “ William, the dragoons are upon 
us. Help us to hide you.” 

There was a feeble effort to rise. Selfish fear 
was not stimulus enough to combat weakness. 
“ For my sake, William,” came the hurried addition. 
“ For my sake, William, hide, or they may kill me 
too.” 

Before the plea was well pronounced Blair had 
started up from the bed and staggered to the door. 
“ I will go forth to the huntsmen, Maister Ivie. Let 
them take the sheep, that they may let the lambs gae 
free.” 

But whilst he was speaking Mistress McCall had 
opened the narrow door leading into the small 
chamber already mentioned as affording a seasonable 
refuge for Ivie, and together she and her son, with 
affectionate force, pushed the proscribed man in and 
locked him up. 

They had scarcely done so when thundering raps, 
showered upon the cottage walls and windows, as 


Alas ! 


271 


well as the outer panels of the door, imperiously- 
demanded admittance. 

“ Who knocks ? ” called Kate McCall. 

“ Those who stand upon scant ceremony,” was the 
curt reply, as the Commander opened the house- 
door and strode within without waiting for a leave. 
‘‘Search the place,” he said to his men, who in- 
stantly dispersed, while he turned back to the lady, 
fixing his eyes closely on her countenance as he asked 
— “ Where is the other member of your family ? ” 

Her colour went and came, then faded to a deadly 
pallor. “ ‘ The other member,’ ” she repeated faintly. 
“ I am a widow, sir. And I have one only child, 
whom you see here before you.” 

“ Oh, yes, I see him plainly enough,” was the 
reply, in a tone that pierced the mother with a sharp 
stab of apprehension. “ I shall have a word to say 
to him by and by, perchance. At the present 
moment I want to know where that third person is 
whom we saw him helping to escape from this room. 
You will save us a little trouble if you tell.” 

“ I can tell nothing,” came the low, firm answer, 
“ but that I trust in God he may have escaped your 
cruel hands.” 

“ Oh, indeed ! then your trust will be betrayed for 
once, I am afraid,” came the scoffing answer. And 
the officer addressed his company, who had now 
returned to him from the fruitless search. “ Strip off 
the roof,” he ordered, “and smash the casements out. 

“ Madam, this is cold weather to dwell in a roofless 


272 


Graham McCall's Victory . 


home. Do you still refuse to tell me where the 
fugitive is concealed from the King’s officer?” 

Kate McCall clasped her boy’s hands tightly in 
her own, and spoke no word. Thus the three stood 
confronting each other all the time that the first part 
of the work of ruin was proceeding. Then he de- 
manded for the third time : 

‘‘Tell me where the man is concealed.” 

Mistress McCall shook her head. “ I would as 
soon betray my own son to butchery as one who has 
sought shelter within my walls.” 

“ Then a warm shelter shall it be,” was the sinister 
reply. “ Take the woman and the lad forth,” he 
exclaimed to his men, “and guard them as care- 
fully as they see fit to guard rebels.” 

The men sprang forward, nothing loth, to execute 
this further command. They had no more reverence 
or respect in their compositions than they had com- 
passion or generosity. But Ivie and his mother drew 
back proudly from this last threatened indignity. 

“ If you insist upon our leaving our home we will 
walk forth, without troubling you for aid in doing so,” 
said Ivie coldly, as he took his mother’s arm within his 
own, and drew her towards the door, even the rough, 
hardened men around falling back before his noble, 
grave young face, to make way for the pair as they 
moved forward. 

On reaching the threshold Ivie turned to the officer 
again. “ Before you insist further upon our ejectment, 
permit me to inform you that you may find yourself 


Alas! 


2 73 


to have been guilty of over- zealousness, even in the 
eyes of those in authority over you. My mother is 
the sister of the Bishop of Dunblane.” 

The dragoon turned contemptuously upon his heel. 
“ Tell that, my lad, to those who have a good capacity 
for being gulled. But even if your story were true 
it would make no difference. His superior of St. 
Andrew’s would give him little support, believe me, in 
attempts to screen those who harbour these obstinate 
rascals.” 

With a low sigh mother and son stepped out of 
the cottage which had been their home for five years 
past, and as they did so their oppressor gave his final 
order with a jeering laugh. 

“ Now, fellows, bestir yourselves. Gather every 
stick of furniture you can lay hands on, pile it up 
just within the door here, and fire it. If we cannot 
find the rat’s hole we will see if we cannot smoke out 
the rat.” 

This speech the McCalls did not hear, and it was 
not until they saw the flames rising from their burning 
property that they knew what last barbarous device 
the enemy had hit upon to discover their sacredly 
guarded secret. 

With a piercing cry of horror Kate McCall sprang 
towards the officer, who stood outside on the stone 
flags of the front court coolly looking on at the 
hestruction of the goods, and watching narrowly for 
the expected appearance of a human figure in the 
space beyond. S 


274 


Graham McCall's Victory. 


“Ye must verily be a fiend,” she exclaimed, almost 
beside herself with fear for the poor sufferer within, 
and with indignation against the persecutors. “ He 
will be burned to death. Ye have so placed your fire 
that he cannot get forth. He is in the little chamber 
behind this door.” 

She had told at last. But instead of exulting over 
the extorted confession even the officer was staggered 
by the information, for the second. If the man were 
consumed in there where would be the proof that the 
wrecking of the cottage could be justified ? There 
did begin to appear some peril looming in the dis- 
tance, that the Bishop of Dunblane might call some 
one to a heavy reckoning for this day’s work. 

I vie instantly perceived the change of expression, 
and instantly took advantage of the anxiety it 
showed. “ Lend me one of the most courageous of 
your men,” he said quickly, “and we will rescue him.” 

“ The whole interior is on fire,” was the reply, with 
a mingling of longing and irritation. 

Ivie waited for no more. Nodding to a soldier 
who had stepped out from his companions, a sign 
that he accepted a share of the dangerous work, 
he darted round to that back window at which 
Henry Savile had formerly startled Turner, and leapt 
in, followed by our old acquaintance, Flemming. 

In a cupboard just within hung some plaids which 
they wrapped about their heads and faces and their 
hands. Then they dashed on through smoke and 
flames to the door, visible enough now, for the house- 


A las ! 


*75 


door which had concealed it was consumed by the 
fire. 

" I cannot find the key,” groaned Ivie. For reply 
his companion dashed the panels in, and they both 
paused for a few seconds inside the cool apartment to 
take breath. But the pause threatened to be fatal to 
them all. The flames took no time for thought as 
they rushed in to the new space offered for their wild 
triumph. 

“ Oh ! help me ; hasten,” gasped Ivie, already 
struggling unaided to lift William Blair’s almost 
lifeless body in his arms, and carry him through the 
raging element. 

A gleam of pity passed across Flemming’s face. 
It came to his mind that, after all, he was showing 
but cruel kindness in helping to effect this rescue. 
A minute’s smoke penetrating through that door, and 
the Covenanter would have escaped, in his swoon, 
from all further persecutions that man is permitted to 
inflict upon God’s people, for some wise reason which 
we shall surely learn hereafter. 

This whole matter had been a growing puzzle to 
Flemming ever since his witness of the peaceful, 
prayerful death of Daniel MacMichael. But of 
course his thoughts at the present instant were of 
the swiftest and least weighty. Whenever he had 
embarked in an undertaking he liked to go through 
with it, and successfully. Two minutes later he and 
Ivie, with their burden sheltered closely between 
them, had regained the window by which they 

S 2 


276 Graham McCall's Victory. 


entered, and so strongly is the admiration of personal 
courage implanted in the human breast, that even the 
brutalized officer joined in the cheers bestowed upon 
Ivie as he was helped over the sill, so scorched and 
disfigured that he would have needed no further 
disguise to pass unknown by even William Blair 
himself. 

Having secured the prize he was in search of, the 
commander’s sympathy was sufficiently excited to 
make him resolve upon leaving Ivie his liberty, but, 
unhappily, before he had time to announce this 
merciful intention, the admiration of another brought 
back all his hardness, and determination to execute 
his plan to the last particular. 

Being taller, Flemming’s face had not suffered so 
much as Ivie’s, and besides, not being so anxious for 
the sick man’s protection, he had been free to give 
more heed to his own. For the same reason he was 
free now to contemplate the boy as he tried to direct 
his mother’s care from himself to their rescued 
friend. 

“ Well, young sir,” he said warmly, “ you certainly 
are a brave lad. Even Sir James Turner said that, 
when you braved him, and dashed the cup, he put 
into your hand, away into the water of the burn, 
instead of putting the water into it. I wish we had 
some of that same water now. I doubt if — ” 

But what he doubted had to remain untold. He 
had said enough and too much for the poor McCalls. 
More than enough to make the officer’s heart once 


A las I 


277 

more as unyielding as the nether millstone or a block 
of Aberdeen granite. 

They were splendid prizes truly for a stalwart 
officer to boast of having secured ; a man who 
seemed as if he were hovering on the brink of the 
grave ; and a lad with the flesh literally burnt off his 
hands in some places, his arms blistered to the 
elbows, and his face scorched, with the long eye- 
lashes burnt away from the frank brown eyes, and the 
bright locks from the fearless brow, and all this 
courted voluntarily, with risk besides of death, to 
save a fellow-creature’s life 1 

Well, after all, yes. Ivie McCall was a splendid 
prize, but not according to the sense that his captors 
gave the term. 




CHAPTER XXVII. 


LEARNING THE NEWS. 


mi 


ARY BLAIR had wandered in and out of her 
house fifty times, aye, perhaps a hundred 
since she had left the McCalls’ cottage 
twenty-four hours ago. This way and that 
she had looked to see if perchance her husband 
might be returning to her for help and a hiding- 
place. The soldiers around had watched her steps, 
and noted the direction of her eyes, as closely as 
they had done for days past, until at length they 
shared her own hopelessness, and as she finally entered 
her neat abode, and closed the door, the ambush was 
given up, and the small detachment was marched off 
to another more promising locality. 

“ Those rascally Covenanters no doubt have spies 
as well as ourselves,” said the commander,- “ who 
have warned the fellow to avoid his own home like 
poison. If we had given the matter a half-thought 
we might have guessed that it was the last place he 
would dare to venture near.” 

And so he led off his men only a few minutes 


Learning the News . 


279 

before a demented, hunted-looking creature crossed 
the very clearing they had made for themselves during 
their stay, and hurried with a quick, scared manner 
on to Blair’s Farm. 

Half-an-hour or so had passed, and Mary, gazing 
from her window with blank eyes, suddenly lifted her 
hands, and passed them with a swift pressure over 
her eyelids. She had thought it impossible that she 
should be able to sleep again, while this heavy afflic- 
tion bowed her spirit so greatly with its burden of 
grief But yet at this minute she felt she must be 
sleeping, and dreaming besides. 

She had seen a thin curl of blue smoke rising from 
one of the chimneys of the farmhouse of Blair’s 
Farm. There had been no fire in that abode since 
Mistress McCall bid her farewell, silent but for fast- 
flowing tears, on its threshold nearly five years ago. 
Whose could be the hand that had lighted one 
there now ? 

When she looked forth again she knew that she 
was gazing at no sleeping vision. The first faint blue 
vapour might b^ mistaken for dreamy imaginings, but 
now it had swelled into a dark volume, and rose into 
the air steadily and continuously. With a glance 
around to assure herself that all was as ready as she 
could make it in her own place, to welcome a return- 
ing wanderer, she snatched up her plaid once more, 
and throwing it over her head, she flew across the 
stepping-stones of the swollen burn, and darted 
within the farmhouse door. 


280 


Graham McCall's Victory . 


But one qualm of hesitation did seize her then, as 
she remembered that the dragoons might have quite 
possibly chosen such a commodious shelter for them- 
selves from the inclement weather. And there were 
voices — at least a voice speaking aloud in a strained, 
high-pitched key, as though addressing some one who 
was deaf. Mary listened — at first from fear and 
curiosity, and then, afterwards, because she could 
not choose but listen, for she was as one rooted to 
the spot. 

“Yes,” said the unseen shrill speaker; “oh, yes! 
I must see to it speedily that I e’en make all things 
ready for him, and comfortable, for he will be sair 
tired, I doobt, and cauld. Unless — ” And there 
came a pause, broken by a low wail. “ Unless 
maybe yon fire, they put William Blair and him intil 
together, will ha’ warmed him so as he’ll na feel cauld 
any rfiair.” 

Another pause. Mary Blair forgot that the air 
was far below the freezing point, and tore off her 
plaid, the great drops standing thick upon her forehead. 
Then the voice went on : 

“ They might ha’ let me go with my boy, my bairn— 
the only son o’ the widow, I told them that ; but they 
mocked at the hallowed words. And when I lay 
upon the cauld snow an’ kissed their feet, they 
spurned me. ‘ Ah, mother, go,’ my bairn cried upon 
me then. ‘This hurts me more than all. Go, my 
mother. I will follow you ! ’ Yes. Those were his 
own very words — ‘ I will follow you P And my Ivie 


Learning the News. 


281 


never told a lie. He cannot tell one now, and to his 
mother. ‘ I will follow you.’ He said that, so I must 
make haste that all may be in readiness to give him 
a cheering meal and a bright welcoming.” 

The spell upon Mary Blair gave way now to her 
desperation. With one bound she was off the wooden 
settle in the hall upon which she had sunk down, 
and stood before Mistress McCall in the farmhouse 
kitchen, where she knelt warming her outstretched 
hands at the blazing fire, making no further attempts 
at preparation, for all the ceaseless repetition of the 
sentences that spoke of doing so. 

The vacant look in her eyes never changed, even 
when her favourite waiting-maid of old stood there 
speaking to her, calling upon her by name to tell 
what had happened to the absent husband, whether 
there was any reality in the terrible utterances that 
hinted at his being burnt to death. 

At last, half frantic with dread suspense, Mary 
seized the lady by the shoulders, pulled her up on to 
her feet, and almost shook her, as she cried out in her 
helplessness : “ Oh, Lord, be pitiful ! Have mercy 
upon us, and give her back her reason.” 

The answer to the imploring petition came ere 
long. Slowly the vacant stare faded out of the soft 
brown eyes, slowly the rigid features relaxed, and 
with a heavy sigh of returning consciousness she 
sank into the arms of her companion. But it was 
not until a couple of hours later that she was able to 
tell her whole sad tale to the woman who was so full 


282 


Graham McCall's Victory. 


a participator in its gloom. It was evident even to 
the mother by that time that it was useless for her 
to remain at the farmhouse that night, in the hope 
of meeting Ivie there. 

“ Besides,” she sobbed, amidst her bitter weeping, 
“ besides, if he contrived to escape from his barbarous 
captors, he would be more likely to seek me at the 
cottage, for he begged me to come to you when I 
was so cruelly beaten off from following him.” 

Mary was thankful to lead her across to her own 
small home. It looked less desolate than the larger 
house, and while prevailing upon her to take rest and 
a little food, the two tried to form plans for the 
future. 

“ Surely the Bishop will help us to get them set 
free,” was Mary Blair’s natural exclamation. 

But Kate McCall shivered and shook her head. 
“ I went there before I came here, and I was repulsed 
from my own brother’s door by servants of Arch- 
bishop Sharp, to whom I told my errand. My 
brother lies unconscious, prostrate with fever, and all 
unable to give us aid.” 

It was learning this that had caused her reason to 
give way for a while, and she shuddered at the 
remembrance. If she too should become helpless 
the condition of William Blair and Ivie would be 
rendered doubly hopeless. Her companion wrung 
her hands. 

“ Is there no one to whom we can appeal ? no 
one to whom we can turn for compassion ? no one in 


Learning the News. 


283 


the whole wide world who will speak a word to save 
the helpless and the innocent ? ” 

Mary Blair might have uttered her cry with a yet 
deeper accent in it of despair had she known that an 
Earl high in power, high in the king’s favour, let an 
intimate friend be beheaded sooner than “ worry ” 
that king by speaking a word of remonstrance to 
him on the friend’s behalf! But wdile Mary was 
speaking, another memory, happier than the former 
one, had flashed into her lady’s mind. 

There was the Venice flask, so long unneeded that 
it had been well-nigh forgotten, and there was the 
giver. He had been seen but the dawn of that very 
day, but the tragic events that had passed since he 
left yon little secluded glen had for a while banished 
the recollection of him also from her thoughts. 

Her hands went together in their accustomed fer- 
vent clasp. “ Yes ! ” she ejaculated ; “ there is some 
one, I believe. We have a friend who may succour 
us, if God will, even in this dark hour of affliction. 
Have you forgotten that Ivie had a strange visitor 
the day James Guthrie died, and that he delivered a 
flask to him, and a message to be given to me ? ” 

Mary, like her mistress, had forgotten the circum- 
stance, and with better reason ; but the circumstance 
thus recalled to her mind, she was instantly as eager 
to recover the token as if she had been told absolutely 
that it would save her husband’s life. When the 
moon rose silvery clear in the brilliant starlit, frosty 
sky, the two women stepped out into the still night 


284 Graham McCall's Victory . 


air, and walked six miles over the hard, bright snow 
to the burnt-out cottage, to see if perchance they 
might find some fragment of the treasure amongst 
the ruins. 

Birds and animals had already found refuge from the 
inhospitable, white-clad earth within the unprotected 
dwelling, and flew screaming off as the human beings 
entered the bare, burnt doorway. Kate McCall burst 
into tears. The desolation of her home seemed a 
presage to her of desolation of her heart. Her faith 
in her Lord was warm and true and loving, but even 
the dear Lord Himself once groaned forth : “ If it be 
possible, let this cup pass from Me.” 

Mary Blair looked at her sister in affliction with 
sad sympathy, but her own eyes remained dry. She 
seemed as though she had wept away all her tears, 
or that they were burnt up with the fire of her grief. 
She clambered over the burnt heaps of furniture that 
withstood their progress at the entrance, and hastened 
to the little bed-chamber that Mistress McCall had 
been wont to occupy. It formed a strange contrast 
to the rest of the place. 

Whether from inadvertence, or because they had 
found elsewhere enough for their purpose, the dra- 
goons had left this room intact. With its fair 
neatness and simplicity it looked a very haven of 
peace, a literal oasis in the desert ; and as Kate 
McCall eagerly followed the glad cry that proceeded 
thence, and found the perfumed flask lying whole and 
uninjured as she had hid it amidst the few relics 


Learning the News. 


285 


of bygone days, the revulsion of feeling was so great 
that she now felt as certain that her son and her 
friend’s husband would be rescued, as she had just 
before felt despairingly convinced of the contrary. 

Her newly-risen hope would have been short-lived 
had she been able to exercise the second sight that 
her countrymen believed in. 




» 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

IV1E McCALL BEFORE THE JUDGES. 

HAVE just here, at my hand, an advertise- 
ment respecting Dunblane — one of the 
present day, you know. It praises the 
climate, and, amongst other matters, in- 
forms us that it is a good central place from which to 
visit the Trossachs, and all the finest mountain and 
lake scenery in Scotland. More strangely interesting 
still to Charles the Second and Ivie McCall, could 
they have foreseen it, would have been the further 
information that “ the railway junction is twelve hours 
from London, and one and a half from Edinburgh.” 

It took Mistress McCall and Mary Blair more than 
the twelve hours to get to their own metropolis from 
Dunblane, let alone all thoughts of getting to London, 
as to which, it may be said that it would have been a 
really impossible journey to them altogether. It was 
difficult enough for them to reach Edinburgh, although 
they had the burning zeal of an anxious love to help 
in carrying them there. 



I vie McCall before the Judges . 287 


Their eager haste led them to lengthen the distance 
they had to traverse by some few miles, for they shot 
past the district in which Elspeth Spence’s hovel was 
situated, before Kate remembered the injunction given, 
four years since, that she should consult the old woman 
as to the probable use of the token she carried with 
her, and how it was to be made of any avail. 

Thus more precious time was spent, and still more 
in waiting upon the slow pace of Elspeth, who refused 
to give any information meanwhile, either to her sister 
or the lady. 

“ It wad be na gude if I did,” she steadily declared. 
“ For ye say yoursel’ that ye ken na the face o’ him 
that gaed it ye ; and if ye did, let me tell ye, ye might 
risk his neck by pleading to him to save William and 
the bairn, but ye wad do them na guid.” 

“ And why can you do it more safely, then ? ” 
questioned Mary impatiently. 

Her step-sister looked at her from head to foot 
with supreme disdain for her stupidity — “Gar-r-r,” 
she ejaculated. “ Am I a leddy like yon, or a dainty, 
pawky bit body like yoursel ? Auld witch Elspeth 
speaks to ilka ane she meets, gentle an’ simple, an’ 
nane speir what she says. If she were to hould the 
very bit bottle itseP in the faces o’ all the folk in 
Edinbro’, nane wad think anything but that it held 
maybe toads or snakes ; an’ they wad ask na ques- 
tions, but slip by in haste to get no a spell, maybe, 
cast ower them.” 

Whether Mary was convinced by these arguments 


288 


Graham Me Call 9 s Victory . 


or no, Mistress McCall saw sufficient in them to be 
even thankful that the old woman should be their 
companion to the city, where they arrived about noon 
of the dark December day, footsore and pale, but for 
the crimson spots of excitement that glowed upon the 
cheeks of the two younger members of the party. 

There was one in the crowd thronging the road 
to the Council Chamber, a small misshapen creature, 
who was quick to note these signs, and with especial 
malignity he wriggled his way through the groups 
till he reached their side, and could hiss up into the 
lady’s ear words that made her cower back, and press 
her hand upon her heart. 

Birsy nodded maliciously. “Hurry to the Justice 
Hall then, lady, and bid him put by his obstinacy, 
and open his lips, while there is yet time to avoid 
that I tell you of.” 

Even the base informer did not know that there 
was not yet time for that. The worst that could 
happen to any one, so far as the body was concerned, 
with the exception of death itself, or rather, what was 
worse than death, was already being endured by a 
sufferer in that shameful judgment hall, where men 
calmly gazed upon the agonies of their fellow-men, 
and felt no more pity than they showed. 

Having secured William Blair and Ivie, somewhat 
more quickly than they had hoped to do, the party 
who had taken the McCalls’ cottage for their share of 
the enterprise at once hastened after the detachment 
dismissed, according to the informer’s instructions, to 


I vie McCall before the fudges . 289 


the village lying south of the moor. It would be a 
fine thing if they could help in the capture of both of 
the two chief prizes of the day. 

But they might have spared themselves the trouble 
of this second portion of the expedition. About half- 
way one of the men thought he discovered a fugitive 
hidden within a low-lying crevice in the hill-side. 
But on the whole company, officer included, almost 
throwing themselves in a heap before the hole, their 
zeal in hunting human beings was only rewarded by 
finding an old Scotch bonnet ! 

Had they looked into that cupboard of nature’s 
providing any time the past night, they would have 
found there a broad-brimmed, black-beaver hat, 
adorned with the long handsome plumes befitting a 
Cavalier’s head-dress. But some hours since the owner 
had fortunately made the exchange, paid for the day’s 
keep of his horse in the village, and ridden at the 
gallop away on the first long stage he proposed to 
himself for London. 

Henry Savile was such a restless spirit that he was . 
as well known as he was popular, along the various 
high roads leading to and from the great centre. His 
royal master declared once that he was certainly a 
changeling of the fairies, and had originally been 
intended for a postboy. He would gladly have ac- 
cepted the office that day, had he known what was 
going forward, could he by so doing have prevented 
it. But he did one good thing unconsciously by his 

absence. He prevented Birsy discovering his possible 

T 


±9$ Graham McCall's Victory. 

mistake as to the man he had observed in the dim 
winter dawn, and so the dragoons were kept hunting 
for MacMichael quite on the wrong track. 

Many questions were put to Ivie meantime, but he 
answered none of them satisfactorily, and at last the 
commanding officer left him in peace, with the ominous 
threat that he should be delivered over to those who 
would know how to make him speak to better purpose. 

William Blair was in a perfectly comatose state 
when Edinburgh was reached, and he was flung into 
prison, to receive such an amount of rough nursing 
as should suffice to make him conscious, in time, of 
the punishing he was condemned to endure. His 
young companion was to be dealt with at once, for 
two reasons, one being lest MacMichael should have 
time to get warning to choose a remoter hiding-place, 
the other lest the Bishop should recover, and interfere 
for the rescue of the boy who continued to claim a 
right to his protection. 

The first day was spent in preliminary examination, 
in order to make Ivie criminate himself sufficiently in 
the eye of the law to excuse his judges in proceeding 
to any extremities they might consider expedient 

“Are you in any way connected with the Cove- 
nanters?” was the first question put to him as he 
stood there in the great Council Chamber, pale and 
quiet, confronting dozens of stern faces gathered to 
gaze at and brow-beat one young lad. 

He met the scowl fearlessly. “ I am myself a 
Covenanter.” 


I vie McCall before the fudges . 291 


The clear tones of the boyish voice filled the hall, 
and struck to the hearts of the listeners. Some there, 
for all their callousness, would have given much to be 
able to feel themselves capable of that glorious up- 
rightness, that chose the instant prospect of death, 
with truth, to a lie or prevarication. 

“Yes, yes,” exclaimed one of those in authority, a 
gleam of unwonted softness tempering the ruggedness 
of his countenance. “ Yes, my brethren, young parrots 
they say learn quickly. Of course they pick up the 
parrot cry they hear most often round them. We 
shall doubtless ere long have babes and idiots claiming 
to be Covenanters. We shall have enough of nurses’ 
work to do if we condescend to punish children on 
that self-made accusation.” 

But the passing effort to extend rare mercy to a 
prisoner was vain. Archbishop Sharp was on the 
bench. He glanced at his companion, and his 
lip curled with disdain. Then he turned* to the 
captive. 

“Whether the plea just put forward for you be 
justified or no is of slight moment. What you have 
to do now is to abjure the Covenants, and confess 
their illegality. After you have done that we shall 
take small heed to inquire whether a stripling’s puny 
influence has been for them or against them in the 
past.” 

Ivie McCall folded his arms with an unconscious 
air of determined resolve. His voice was as steady 
as before, as he said, with a new tone of indignation, 


292 Graham McCall's Victory. 

inspired by the whisper of the last speaker’s name 
which he had j ust heard : 

“ I am no renegade. The cause my father died to 
serve is mine. What I have been in the past I am 
in the present, and with God’s aiding grace shall be in 
the future to the end of life. The Covenants give to 
God the things that be God’s, and to Caesar the things 
that be Caesar’s, in obedience to our Lord’s command ; 
I will no more abjure them than I will abjure the 
Christian faith.” 

His voice had grown so bold as he went on that all 
eyes regarded him with amaze. James Sharp’s brow 
was black with rage, and his words shook with passion 
as he exclaimed : 

“ Boy ! do you defy us ? Do you dare stand there 
and face us with that declaration on your lips ? ” 

“Even so,” said Ivie sturdily, and drawing forth 
the Bible his uncle had given him from the folds 
of his plaid. “ I can look you in the face, for I have 
done nothing to be ashamed of. But how will you 
look in that day when you are judged by what is 
written in this Book ? ” 

Some of the temporal judges, who were growing 
tired of the perpetual interference of their ecclesiastical 
companion, did not hesitate to add point to the ques- 
tion with their glances, and thus increased the sting, 
and the archbishop’s rancour against the one who 
inflicted it. 

Starting up from his seat, and assuming to himself 
supreme authority for the moment, he shouted to the 



“I can look you in the face, for I have done nothing to he ashamed of. 
But how will you look in that day when you are judged by what is writ- 
ten in this book ? ” 


























































































































































































































.. 


*» 

:* * • 





























I vie McCall before the Judges. I93 

underlings of the Court : “ Ho ! there. Remove the 
prisoner. Confine him strictly, and without food. 
We will examine him further to-morrow. Perchance 
twenty-four hours of starvation may tend to curb the 
insolence of his spirit to a tone more becoming our 
dignity, and his own advantage.” 

No one present had a sufficiently deep interest, one 
way or the other, in the contumacy or suffering of an 
insignificant boy to care to remonstrate as to this 
high-handed proceeding, and accordingly Ivie was 
forthwith led away, and consigned to one of the 
dungeons foul with all the noisomeness of that age. 




. i 


t 


CHAPTER XXIX. 

OLD ELSPETH 1 S PRISONER. 

'K with faintness from want of air and 
want of food, Ivie was dragged forth the 
following day, and again taken into the 
presence of the judges and the witnesses, 
whilst his mother and Mary Blair, with old Elspeth 
in their company, had yet three toilsome miles of 
their journey to perform before they reached Edin- 
burgh. At least an hour must elapse, and in that 
interval men with an indulged taste for persecuting 
cruelty could accomplish much. 

Birsy had been called into the council chamber at 
the outset of the examination, but his cowardly fears 
of being seen by any of the prisoners’ friends had so 
overpowered him that he had been dismissed for 
a time, long enough indeed for him to court the very 
danger he had wished to shun, the temptation to 
harass poor Mistress McCall proving too great for 
his prudence. 

However, so far as the judges were concerned, his 
presence was little needed by them to aid their 



Old Elspetlis Prisoner . 


2 95 


inquiries, seeing he had dagerly enough poured forth 
everything he could think of for their guide, within 
an hour of his arrival in the city. In pursuance of 
his most anxious recommendation, the first question 
addressed to the young prisoner this morning was : 

“ What was the name of the man to whom you 
and your mother unlawfully gave shelter lately, and 
who left your home in the early dawn of this past 
Tuesday ? ” 

Ivie’s listless attitude gave way to one of interest. 
“ I would I knew,” he answered quickly. “ It is 
a thing I have long wished. And I would also crave 
to know by what rule you declare our sheltering 
of him unlawful, when you know not even if he were 
not one of yourselves.” 

“ Silence, thou upstart piece of insolence! ” exclaimed 
the Archbishop. . “ The question is but put for the 
form’s sake. We know well who was thy seditious 
guest, and thou knowest it likewise. Yesterday, to 
satisfy rebellious obstinacy, you could make false 
parade of the virtue of truth ; to-day, to shelter 
a vile ingrate, an audacious rebel against his most 
gracious Majesty’s paternal government, you find 
no cause to hesitate in the telling of a most bold 
falsehood.” 

Young McCall’s pale countenance flushed crimson 
up to the roots of his hair, he made a movement 
as though to spring forward, forgetting his position, 
and as the guards seized him, and forced him back, 
he cried out indignantly : 


296 


Graham McCall's Victory. 


“The perjured are ever foremost to cast the black 
imputation of a lie upon others. I have told the 
truth. I do not know who he was who visited us.” 

“You do not know that he was the villain James 
MacMichael,” came the taunting reply — “a rascal on 
account of whose murderous threats a peaceable 
countryman goes in terror of his life ? ” 

“I — ” began McCall. And there he suddenly 
stopped. Blair had told them where MacMichael was 
in hiding, and he began to fear that a trap was being 
laid to discover the place in this roundabout way. 
His hesitation was instantly seized upon as admission 
that it was the proscribed CoVenanter, and no other, 
who had lately been the unlawfully accepted visitor. 

“You see,” exclaimed the questioner-in-chief, ad- 
dressing his companions with as much elation as if 
he had just discovered a brilliant virtue in a fellow- 
creature, instead of believing that he had detected 
him in a sin. He turned back to the prisoner, and 
taking his conjecture for a matter of course requiring 
no further comments, he continued : 

“ And thus having advanced so far, you will tell us 
farther, where James MacMichael, the arch-rebel, is in 
hiding now, and how we shall best reach him.” 

The boy’s face fired again, and lifting his head 
proudly he exclaimed : 

“ What do you take me for ? — one of your hireling, 
craven-hearted, base-minded spies ? ” 

There was a weighty pause ere the deliberate, 
cutting words came, that seemed to freeze the blood 


Old Elspetti s Prisoner . 


297 


in the veins of some even amongst that hardened 
assembly. 

“No, boy; we take you for no useful, right- 
minded servant of the Government. Flatter not thy- 
self with such a hope. But hark ye ! It concerns 
thee somewhat closely to listen well. We take thee 
to be a living creature, composed of soft, yielding 
flesh, full of nerves, with the power in them of acute 
suffering, and with bones that can be cracked and 
crushed, and joints that can be bent and dislocated 
until the very fashion of the human figure may be 
scarce recognised.” 

A convulsive shudder shook Ivie McCall’s whole 
frame. It was keenly marked, and replied to in the 
same tones of concentrated cruelty. 

“ Ah ! you begin now to understand what we know 
you to be. You do well to shudder, and to reflect 
upon it.” 

Ivie brought his shackled hands together, and his 
head drooped, as he replied in a voice that was still 
distinct though low : 

“ I shuddered not with any thought for myself, but 
to think that I am of a verity in the presence of one 
of the damned. For surely the Lord would never 
allow one of His elect, one of those predestined to 
salvation in His holy heavens, to fall into so awful a 
depth of the very pit of wickedness.” 

For a moment the judge was awed, for one instant 
the barbarous insolence gave way to a cowed look 
upon his face; and one and another exchanged 


298 


Graham McCall's Victory. 


stealthy looks and touches with each other. It was 
very well known that there was a rooted belief in the 
minds of the populace that the Archbishop had 
actually entered into a compact with the evil one, and 
sold his soul to him. He certainly took no . pains of 
late to disabuse them of the grim suspicion by dis- 
playing any Christian virtues for their benefit. His 
present spasm of hesitation was of brief duration, and 
he recovered presence of mind with a double portion 
of malice towards the new victim of persecution. 

“To retort your own words of yesterday upon 
you/’ he exclaimed with a short, hard laugh, “ the 
wicked are ever the readiest to accuse others of doing 
wickedly. I would advise you to remember, insolent 
boy, while there may be yet time, that I am acting 
according to the laws of him who is for us God’s vice- 
gerent upon earth; and therefore I am justified in 
the eyes of all who are not blinded by pride, obstinacy, 
and ignorance. But enough. We are not here to 
argue, but to command and to dictate. Where is the 
man MacMichael ?” 

“ I know not.” 

“Where was he when you did last know?” 

“ I may not say.” 

“ And wherefore ? ” The questioner’s eyes gleamed 
as he thought he was about to gain the trace, or 
at least the name, of another malcontent. “Who 
hath ordered thee to silence on the matter ? ” 

Ivie almost smiled in the midst of this solemn hour. 
He even felt a sentiment of pity for the blunted per- 


Old Elspettis Prisoner . 299 

ceptions of this middle-aged man set over him in 
judgment. 

“ Who hath ordered me ?” he repeated. “My own 
conscience and my own heart have ordered me 
through the grace of God, which hath taught me to 
guard honour as something more valuable than 
mortal life. I tell you plainly, that I will show nothing 
in my speech that may betray any of my brethren 
into your power, howsoever ye may weary me with 
your questionings.” 

Again there came that cruel laugh in reply. “ Fear 
not weariness, boy. Thy spirit shall be bowed, and 
thy obstinacy quelled by somewhat that shall give 
thee no place to complain of weariness. There is 
little slumber wooed by the question to which we will 
even now proceed to have thee put. If our tongues 
have not power to compel answers, we oft find yonde;* 
dumb things have a persuasive eloquence that is 
irresistible.” 

“ He is young,” muttered the voice of him who had 
felt inclined to show some mercy yesterday. “ Add 
not taunts to the needful punishment of his stubborn 
will. He is a brave boy.” 

“ Ah ! and so much the more likely to prove 
troublesome in the future if not broken in at once,” 
was the return. And then, with no voice raised in any 
further dissent, the executioners were summoned, the 
instruments of torture were brought in, displayed 
before the prisoner, and explained to him. 

“Now,” said Pr, Sharp, “we give you one more 


3 °° 


Graham McCall's Victory. 


chance to save yourself the threatened agony. Once 
more I demand of you — tell us what you know of 
James MacMichaers present intentions, and where 
he is.” 

“ I will do neither,” came the firm, clear reply. 

“ We will see,” was the sinister retort. 

Ivie pressed his hands together. The blood fled 
from his face, leaving it perfectly colourless, but he 
still stood there upright and calm, the very picture of 
faithfulness and honour. 

“You may see this,” he said slowly, with his eyes 
fixed upon the dread instruments spread there before 
him, “you may see this, a fellow-creature mangled 
and tormented out of brain consciousness into such 
passing fit of delirium as shall make the tongue say 
aught to which it may receive the prompting. I have 
heard that it hath been so before, I dare not boast 
that it may not be permitted to be so yet again, with 
me. But this ye know full well, that what I say in 
such a state will in truth be unreliable, and of no just 
or reasonable avail against any one.” 

“ Peace/ ’ was the haughty answer from one who 
knew not the meaning of the word. “ Dictate to 
those who deign to listen to you. We make such 
use as best pleaseth us of the information we are 
fortunate enough to know how to compel obstinate 
tongues to impart. Men, do your duty.” 

A thrill ran through the court as the hangmen 
stepped forward, lifted the instrument of torture in- 
dicated, and adjusted the boot to the leg of the slim, 


Old ElspetJis Prisoner. 


3 01 


fair-faced, curly-haired boy. Already the first wedge 
had been hammered in when Birsy, the cobbler, 
gratified his malignant spirit by his whisper to 
Mistress McCall. With a sudden horror of dread 
for what might be already befalling her only son 
she darted forward through the crowds, dragging 
Mary Blair with her, and forgetting old Elspeth 
altogether. 

That latter fact was of less consequence, however, 
as the old woman was busy at the moment on her 
own account. She had heard from MacMichael of a 
certain dwarf spy, whom it would be well for all good 
Covenanters to avoid entirely, or to punish summarily. 
She had seen his expression as he addressed the lady, 
and putting two and two together she drew her own 
correct conclusions, and acted upon them summarily. 

Just at that instant they happened to be in the 
midst of a group of women, all Covenanters, and 
steadfast to the cause in secret. Old Elspeth was 
well known. The dwarf was small and weak, and he 
was hustled five minutes later into a dark room in one 
of those giant tall houses that make one imagine 
Scotch architects must have always had the pro- 
portions of their hills present to their minds. 

I cannot help having a touch of vengeful delight in 
knowing that whilst Ivie McCall was undergoing 
bodily torture Birsy was enduring almost equal 
mental agony from his fears, as he screamed and 
howled and raved, and tore at the grated window and 
the massive door, in the dreary chamber whither he 


3°2 


Graham McCall's Victory . 


had been conveyed. For a parting salute, before 
Elspeth Spence locked him in, she gave him the 
benefit of one of those alligator glances of hers, with 
the accompaniment of a nod, and the significant 
remark : 

“ And now to fetch James MacMichael to ye.” 

“ Any one but him ! any one but him ! ” shrieked the 
wretched informer frantically. 

No reply was vouchsafed to the prayer, but Elspeth 
was delighted at its having been uttered, since it 
made her assurance double sure as to the value of 
her capture. She turned her friend’s key upon him I 
with no more compunction as to leaving him alone 
with his abject terror than if he had been a jackal. 
Then she made her way to the grand abode within I 
whose princely walls her foster-son was wont to stay 
when he was in Edinburgh. But there disappoint- 
ment awaited her, as we already know, and she had 
to appeal to him through a messenger. 

Meantime, to return to the tragedy being enacted, 
under the sanction of the law, in the Justice-Hall of 
Edinburgh, December, 1666. Englishmen had got 
rid of torture at that date in their own courts, and 
yet they were glad enough to avail themselves of its 
hideous use in the northern half of their joint country, 
and felt no shame in doing so. 

The hangman picked up the second of those 
wedges lying ready for his use. The third — the 
fourth. The blood began to spurt over the hammer 
from the crushed and breaking flesh. The blood fell 


Old ElspetJis Prisoner . 


3° 3 


also, one great heavy drop, from the sufferer’s under 
lip, where the teeth had bitten into it in agony, and 
the terrible effort to keep back the struggling groans* 
The sight of that drop was far from awaking pity 
in the haughty judge’s breast. It seemed to excite 
him to some such fury as suffering is said to have 
excited, in reality or in seeming, in the breast of 
Jeffreys. 

“ Will you speak?” he shouted in a fury to the boy. 

* Ah ! yes,” burst from Ivie. “ I will speak : I 
implore ye, have mercy.” 

A horrible chuckle of triumph issued from the 
cruel lips. “ Mercy ! Oh, yes ; we will have mercy, 
since you have managed to find voice to ask it. Now 
tell us where James MacMichael is, and you shall 
be released from yon useful friend of ours, and 
even have a physician’s care to ease your pains be- 
sides. So haste ye : where is he to be found ? ” 

But the triumph of the barbarous judge proved 
premature. Ivie moved his head with a faint gesture 
of despair. 

“ I asked for mercy,” he replied faintly ; “ not 
for a reward for dishonour.” 

To a fresh fierce tirade of denunciations, threats, 
and insults he answered nothing, and the order 
was given for the executioners to continue their 
dreadful work. A fourth wedge was driven in, a 
fifth was being hammered down, the bone of the 
leg cracked, and the sufferer fainted. 

At this moment there was a hubbub of soipe sort 


3 ° 4 


Graham McCall's Victory . 


around the door of the council-chamber, and then 
a buzz of voices, a dozen of them finally rising 
simultaneously into a loud cry of explanation : 

“ It’s nane but the lad’s ain mither. Let her in. 
Make way for the lad’s mither. She’ll mak’ him 
speak, ye’ll see. Let her in.” 

The argument of the crowd impressed the judges 
as so plausible that an almost immediate agreement 
was come to, to accept the recommendation, and 
scarcely a minute had elapsed since Mistress McCall 
had declared her name and relationship to the 
prisoner than she found herself confronted with 
that dread assemblage of the inquisitors, not of 
Spain, but of Great Britain, not of the Romish 
Church, but of the Protestant Church of the Re- 
formation ! 

You see, it is the spirit of Christ, the mind of 
Christ, not the name, that is needed to make men 
Christians. “ Not every one that saith unto Me, 
s Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven ; 
but he tfiat doeth the will of My Father which is in 
Heaven.” 

Certainly if the great object of the Government 
of that day had been to compel the Scotch to become 
rooted, to the very depths of their hearts, in hatred to 
Prelacy, and adhesion to Presbyterianism, no wiser 
step could have been taken than to inflict upon the 
land the nineteen years’ archiepiscopate of Dr. James 
Sharp. 

It seems to be terribly evident that, as a rule, 


Old ElspetJis Prisoner . 305 

wherever cruel work was going forward in the 
country during that period, there was this bishop 
standing to the front of the persecutors. Is it not 
an awful thing to act so during life as that your 
name gets passed down through the ages with 
abhorrence ? While a man is alive his haughty 
malice may find gratification in knowing that there 
is fear mingled with the hate ; but he forgets 
that, tyrant as he is, there is yet one greater than 
he by whom he will be conquered. Death is 
coming. 

And when the man is dead all fear of him is dead 
too. He forgets that. He forgets too the lessons 
taught him by the histories of other men like himself, 
that as the fear sinks down — a leaden weight, dropped 
into his grave and buried with him there once for all 
— something else springs into sudden life — a scathing 
contempt joins with the hate, and clings with it to 
his name for as long as the memory of the name 
itself endures. 

A few years ago two gentlemen of ability and 
position were talking together. 

“ Do you see much of so and so ? ” asked one. 

The lip of the other curled. “ No,” he said shortly ; 
“ I don’t.” 

The first speaker went on with the subject : “ Ah ! 
he is very unpopular. He’s well off, has a capital 
house, and seems anxious to entertain his old set, 
but his efforts don’t meet with much reward, as far 
as I can discover.” 


U 


306 Graham McCall's Victory. 


“ No,” said the other curtly ; and then he made 
a plunge into another topic for conversation. 

A short time after I put a question quietly, to 
the one who had brought forward the name of the 
unpopular individual. 

“ Oh ! ” was the answer ; “ well, really I do not 
know much about him myself. He was the 
triumphant bully of his school when he was a boy.” 
Upon which I echoed my informant’s “ Oh,” and 
I could not help thinking that the object of the 
sneer I had seen on the lip of one of his “old set ” 
would gladly give up the half of his fortune if 
he could but return to his boyhood, and resign 
his position of triumphant bully, resigning with it 
the contemptuous dislike of maturer years of his 
own “ old set.” 




CHAPTER XXX. 

NOT A TOMAN MATRON , BUT A "CHRISTIAN. 

HAT a position for a timid-natured, shrinking 
woman— one who during the past thirteen 
years had been a complete recluse from 
the world. Her seclusion had never been 
broken through but that once, when she paid her 
other visit to Edinburgh on the occasion of the 
execution of the suppliant, James Guthrie. 

The hall seemed filled with a sea of eyes to Kate 
McCall's excited nerves, and, after the first dazed and 
frightened glance around, her own were stiicken 
with a passing blindness. As she clung trembling to 
the arm of Mary Blair she scarce remembered for 
some moments why she was there, or whose fa'ce it 
was that she had tried to discover at the instant of 
her entrance. 

A sharp, imperious voice recalled her but too 
quickly from those merciful seconds of oblivion. 

“Come forward,” exclaimed one of the judges 
imperatively. 

U 2 



Graham McCall's Victory . 


5°8 


Mary Blair advanced a step, drawing her companion 
with her. But they were too slow to suit the im- 
patience of those watching them, and the order was 
repeated, with the additional injunction — 

“ Look towards yonder obstinate lad, and tell" us 
whether ye be the mother of yon Ivie McCall.” 

As the name was pronounced a piercing cry 
resounded through the hall — “ Ivie, my bairn Ivie, 
my only one ! Where is he ? ” 

The name was all she had heard ^of the words 
addressed to her. That recalled her to her object, 
and disengaging herself from her companion she 
sprang towards the upper end of the Court, towards 
the members of the High Commission of Inquiry, and 
demanded her son of them with the unhesitating 
eagerness of a bereaved mother recognizing no 
earthly dignity as worthy to be weighed in the 
balance with maternal love. 

But fearless as her speech was, it was somewhat 
incoherent from anxiety, and one of those she ad- 
dressed bent forward, and asked, with passing interest 
in this slight break in the day’s very ordinary 
proceedings : 

“ Woman, canst thou not moderate thy hasty 
tongue ? What wouldst thou ? ” 

“ My son ! ” she exclaimed. “ My only son, who has 
been unjustly seized, and is unjustly detained! I 
demand that he shall be restored to me, and now, in 
the name of all justice, human as Divine. What have 
ye done with him ? where is he ? ” 


Not a Roman Matron , but a Christian. 309 


A sinister smile curled the lip of him who sat 
beside the questioner, and it was his well-known 
voice that replied coldly : 

“ Ah, dame, you repeat our own words. We have 
been asking until patience was exhausted — Where -is 
he ? Nay, start not. We have put our question, not 
as about your son, but to him ; and to prove our 
superior graciousness, we answer you, that he you 
wish for sits yonder, and when he replies fully to our 
question we may allow you to carry him away.” 

Following the direction of the pointing finger with 
her eyes, Mistress McCall at last saw the fainting 
form of Ivie, and was about to rush forward to clasp 
it in her arms. But a sign from the judges to some 
of their men frustrated the effort. She was caught 
and held back. 

“ Nay, dame, not so fast, with your leave, or with- 
out it if ye see not well to give it. The lad shall be 
recovered from his swoon, and then we will enjoy 
the satisfaction of hearing you persuade him to his 
own advantage. He hath displayed much that is 
hateful in one so young, of obstinacy and disrespect 
to his elders and superiors. We would fain see if he 
at least possess the virtue of filial reverence — ” 

“ There was never a son who more faithfully fulfilled 
the fifth commandment,” said Kate McCall, passion- 
ately. “And he hath nought in him that is hateful, 
so far as imperfect human sight can see. Let me 
go to him, ye cruel slanderers, that I may bring him 
back to consciousness.” 


3 10 


Graham McCall's Victory . 


But the prayer and indignant disclaimer were alike 
disregarded. She was still restrained from leaving 
the place she had gained, close before the judicial 
bench, while the executioners made use of such rough 
means for restoring those to consciousness who fell 
under their treatment as long practice had taught 
them were most speedily efficacious. 

Another variety of pain was employed in the pre- 
sent instance, and with a groan Ivie’s heavy eyes 
half-opened and rested upon his tormenters. 

“Now,” cried one of them hastily, “we have 
brought him back to life, but he must be spoken to 
at once. His strength is very low. We can do no 
more.” 

“ Address your son,” commanded one of the judges, 
and with a wailing sob she cried out to him : 

“ Ivie, my bairn Ivie ! Thy mother is here, and ye 
are ill, and they will na’ let me coom to thee.” 

At the sound of his mother’s voice a gleam of 
brightness darted back into the dim eyes. What the 
hangmen had but been able to accomplish in part her 
cry completed. Heavy tears gathered beneath the 
burning eyelids and fell, as the tortured boy looked 
up at the men, and murmured below his breath 
entreatingly : 

“ Hide it from her, I implore you. Let her not 
know how great has been the suffering. Be merciful 
only in this, and I will entreat God if it may but be 
that He shall show you mercy.” 

But meantime, while these hardened ruffians turned 


Mot a Roman Matron , but a Christian. 3 1 1 


their faces aside from the tearful gaze of the noble- 
looking, handsome boy, there was not one grain so 
large as a grain of mustard-seed of mercy in the 
hearts of those in authority over them, who were 
certainly their superiors in one thing, and that was 
hardness of their callous hearts. 

He who had constituted himself spokesman for 
the judges, in this trial, now sternly demanded of 
Mistress McCall if she knew where James MacMichael 
was at present hiding. Her start and stare of 
astonishment at the question were evidently genuine, 
as was also her tone, as she replied : 

“ I know not even so much as the name of the man.” 

A new fear seized upon Ivie lest the persecutors 
should put her also to the torture, and he exclaimed 
with a sudden accession of strength : 

“ It is true. Although I have heard and known 
much, my mother has known nought. William Blair 
and I saw no need to put her in peril of such treat- 
ment as this, and so we kept her ignorant — ” 

“ Of what you thus dare boldly to confess that 
you, for your own part, know, and refuse to declare,” 
exclaimed one of his hearers, assuming an air of 
righteous indignation. “ Presumptuous boy, to brave 
our lawful authority and displeasure. But we will 
see if a mother’s commands may not have more 
power over your contumacy than ours have obtained.” 

Young McCall cast a hurried, half-anxious glance 
at his mother as the judge spoke. But although he 
met a gaze far more anxious and imploring than his 


3 12 


Graham McCall's Victory . 


own, his trust in her steadfastness returned, and he 
raised his eyes once more to those beyond, as he 
replied firmly : 

“ From my mother’s teaching, by the grace of God, 
I have learnt to value honour and righteous dealing 
more than life. She loves me as I suppose, perhaps, 
only mothers can love who have had to act the part of 
both parents to an only child. But if it be your 
barbarous pleasure to torture her by putting me to 
further torment before her eyes, flatter not yourselves 
with the vain hope that her lips shall be the ones to 
strive to make me prove her precepts and example 
vain.” 

A sinister, harsh laugh gave point to the answer. 
“ Ah — ha ! A Spartan youth thyself, doubtless. And 
thy mother would pose for the model of a Roman 
matron! Yon shrinking, white-faced dame there 
looks the character surely to the life.” 

The taunt stung Mistress McCall into quicker con- 
sciousness. She faced round upon the scorner, her 
crimsoned cheeks belying one part at any rate of the 
insulting speech, and her slight figure seemed invested 
with a new and sacred dignity. 

“ I pose for nought than that I am,” she said. “ Yet 
let me tell thee this, that, as a Christian woman and 
a Covenanter, I have all of force of will and firmness 
that the grandest of the Roman matrons ever had. 
And I have this besides — the might of Him to sustain 
me who hath said, ‘Trust ye in the Lord for ever, for 
in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength.’” 


Not a Roman Matron , but a Christian. 3 1 3 


He whom she addressed made an effort to utter a 
second of those jeering laughs, but passion choked 
it, for he began to suspect that the pair whom he 
tried to stigmatize as utterly contemptible would in 
reality baffle all his power and malignity. The order 
was given to the executioners, however, in order that 
cruelty might be satisfied, if not curiosity. 

Ivie’s crushed leg was once more restored to the 
boot, and the very men who were hardened by long 
practice at the work shuddered at the sickening sight, 
before the victim’s apparent death under his suf- 
ferings brought them the tardy permission to desist. 
Mistress McCall had succumbed even sooner to the 
agony of her sympathy, and instructions had been 
given for her removal into custody. But woman’s 
skill, aided by the sympathy of the crowd, and the 
help of an unsuspected friend, baffled the judges in 
this particular, and while the horribly-maimed son 
was carried back to his dungeon, the mother was 
conveyed to a room in the same house wherein Birsy 
was locked up, who had wrought her so much misery. 




CHAPTER XXXI. 

KING CHARLES'S MOOD. 

ET me invite you to leave Scotland for a 
few hours, and spend the short interval 
on English soil. 

On a couch covered with white satin 
embroidered with gold, in one of the ante-chambers 
of Whitehall, lounged the young Anglicised French- 
man, Bernard. He looked up with lazy indolence as 
the door opened. 

“ Ah ! my good friend Henri, you are the bien 
vemi , for our merry monarch is in his gayest mood, 
and for me — Ah ! ma foi — I have laughed till I 
feel the shape of my mouth deranged for — But — 
liein ! you look not much like laughing, my friend. 
What hast thou ? ” 

“ News — evil news,” said Savile, as he threw him- 
self down beside his companion. “But say then, 
Bernard. You tell me that the king is in his gayest 
mood. There are two sides to that mood — one that 
will as soon laugh at others as with them ; the other 



King Charles s Mood. 315 

when he appears to find true delight in awaking 
gratitude.” 

“ It is that side of his mood that he entertains just 
now,” said a voice. But it was not Bernard’s. 

Both the young men sprang to their feet, bowing 
low and in confusion before Charles II., whose good- 
looking face was one beaming smile of boyish satis- 
faction at the startled surprise he had given his two 
courtiers. 

“ I crave pardon,” began Savile. 

“ For what offence ? ” laughed his Majesty, as he 
laid his hand on his arm, and led him away. “ Think 
ye, Savile, that I am so wanting in wits as to imagine 
that I am not discussed, like other men, behind my 
back ? No, no. If you could promise me that none 
shall henceforth say worse than you said just now, I 
fear that I should be tempted to turn listener. It is 
something to hear that, with all my faults, there is 
one person in the world who credits me with having 
sometimes a virtue. But tell me. There is some 
boon you would ask of me, is there not ? ” 

“ Yes, your Majesty,” began Savile eagerly, and then 
he hesitated, and looked troubled again. 

“ Speak on,” said the king. “ Have no fear. I 
grant your request before you make it, although,” 
with another laugh, “ you have so lately come from 
my troublesome dominions in the North. Verily I 
believe that some petitioners from thence would pray 
me hang the whole land en masse , if it had but a 
neck ; whilst others would have me go down on my 


316 


Graham McCall’s Victory. 


knees, and pray them to hang me, with the rejected 
Covenant about my neck. But I dare declare you 
have other matters than such as those on hand.” 

Henry Savile tried to smile, but the attempt was 
such a sorry one he gave it up, and settled resolutely 
back into his former gravity. A messenger from old 
Elspeth had reached him but an hour since, bringing 
with him the Venice flask, out of which Graham 
McCall had drunk sufficient strength to prophesy a 
future life of kind deeds and holiness for Savile 
thirteen years ago. And now the son of that same 
Graham McCall lay broken with torture and 
threatened with death. 

According to Savile’s own opinion of himself, he 
had not as yet in one jot fulfilled the prophecy, but 
he felt, for the first time, willing that it should be 
proved false if by giving his own life up at once he 
might save the lad’s. He almost offered the ex- 
change when at last he began to plead for a signed 
pardon for the young Covenanter. 

“Thank you for nothing,” said Charles, laughing 
the third time, but somewhat shortly and bitterly 
now. “ How think you it would improve matters if, 
in sparing these obstinate, thick-skulled rebels, I 
sacrificed a stalwart, faithful fellow who may be 
useful in aiding me against their machinations ? But 
what know you about this boy ? ” 

“ Not much. I know him to be honest, upright, 
brave, and a good son, I know him personally 
scarcely at all.” 


King Charles's Mood, 


3 l 7 

“ Then why so earnest for his escape from what is, 
I doubt not, fully the young rascal’s due ? Why risk 
annoying me by taking the cause of any of that 
party upon you ? ’* 

Henry Savile let his eyes rest gravely upon the 
king’s face. The two were alone for the minute. 
“ Sire, in by-gone days his father and I were 
brothers in arms fighting for your Majesty. At the 
close of the Glencairn expedition he saved my life at 
the expense of his own. In dying he prayed that 
the prolonged existence might be blessed to myself 
and others ; he prayed that I might be spared to 
fight — for Christ.” 

Charles stooped hastily over a little Spaniel pup, 
picking it up in his arms, and apparently devoting 
his attention to it, to the exclusion of all else. At 
last, after a long pause, he said abruptly : 

“ I promised you the boon you craved before you 
named it. Come with me yonder, and wait while I 
write the pardon. But I warn you, those who are 
working my will on the Northern rabble do not let 
the grass grow under their feet. It is little likely that 
the one you petition for will be still alive when you 
reach Edinburgh with the order for his release.” 

A low sigh broke from the courtier as he murmured, 
“ Then in that case he will be free indeed.” 

By the time the pardon was written, signed, and 
sealed, all the king’s lightness of manner had 
returned, and as carelessly as though he were speak- 
ing of a hat-plume, or of some jewelled toy, he said : 


3 1 8 


Graham McCall's Victory. 


“ There, my friend, take it, and with it take another 
word of warning — Don’t brag of your prize until you 
hold it in your hand, and don’t let even the jailers 
know that they are to give it up until you have got 
him out.” 

Savile shook his head with sorrowful impatience. 
He knew but too well how tight a clutch was kept 
upon the poor Scotch Covenanters when once they 
were caught hold of, and in how many ways justice 
was strained to elude any of the pleas of mercy. 

“ But I fear, in spite of your advice, you will not 
declare me excused if I break into Edinburgh castle 
by force, to rescue Ivie McCall.” 

The king laughed lightly. “ Hardly. Neither 
will I hold you excused if you are long absent. 
Scarcely hath one given you glad welcome than you 
are off again. Who knows but I may try to win 
more of your gratitude, if you only hurry back while 
I am still in this good mood for granting unpalatable 
requests.” 

Henry Savile bent low, and murmured his earnest 
thanks for the king’s graciousness, little thinking 
what fresh cause he should soon have for making a 
further demand upon it. Two hours later he was 
once more in the saddle on the great North road. 
Any one, to look at him, would have thought that he 
carried an order of condemnation rather than a full 
pardon within the inner pocket of his riding belt. 
But the fact was that now, for the first time, his 
mind seemed to have leisure to grasp all the horror 


King Charles s Mood. 


3*9 

and heart-rending sadness of the news he had 
received. 

More than a fortnight had passed since Ivie had 
been taken and put to the torture ; more than a 
fortnight since his tender, gentle mother had stood 
by, a helpless witness to his sufferings ; more than a 
fortnight had passed since the sick man, William 
Blair, had been flung into a damp and filthy dungeon, 
in which a dog could scarcely live ; and it was pain 
even to think what his poor wife must have been 
enduring throughout those heart-breaking days. 
Something approaching another fortnight must pass 
before the Englishman could reach the scene of all 
this misery. And meantime — ! 

At that point in his meditations the rider put spurs 
to his horse, and dashed onwards in a headlong 
gallop, as though he thought a little extra effort 
might bridge over the “ meantime,” and turn it into 

M 


now. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

“ BUT BY STEALTH , FOR FEAR" 

ENRY SAVILE spent many weary minutes 
in counting and recounting the days that 
had passed since he left the peaceful, 
simple little home of the McCalls in the 
grey December dawn. And as he counted he grew 
increasingly convinced that the king had done well 
to remind him that he was very far from sure, as yet, 
that he would be able to render any help to his 
friends. The two captives might already have been 
put to death, and the two women were perchance 
dead of broken-heartedness. 

You can scarcely imagine how terrible it was to 
Savile to have to go on riding and resting, and sleep- 
ing and eating, with these drear apprehensions filling 
his mind. I have often wished that I could flash 
myself along the telegraph wires, and the Covenanters’ 
English friend sorely wished that he had power to 
chain himself to the wind, and to compel it to bear 
him with its own swift speed to his desired goal. But, 



“ But by Stealth , for Fearf 


321 


after all, things were not in quite the desperate plight 
up there that he supposed. His four especial 
proteges had met with another friend — also an 
Englishman. 

Flemming was a very clever fellow in many ways, 
and something of a thinker. Since he had been in 
Scotland he had seen an immense deal of what was 
wicked and base, and in every way irreligious, 
amongst his own comrades ; from the commanders 
down to the rawest recruits. But amongst the 
Covenanters he had found all otherwise. Even those 
of the persecuted class who were narrow-minded, 
and actually uncharitable in profession, lived noble 
and pure lives, exercised the most unbounded and 
self-sacrificing generosity towards each other, and a 
grand forbearance in acts, if not in words, as a rule, 
towards their enemies. These facts had their due 
weight on an observant mind. 

It may also be confessed that the soldier was by no 
means a perfect character himself, and feelings of 
irritation against his autocratic, fierce-tempered supe- 
riors did in some measure help him to see the grander 
virtues of the persecuted unfortunates. Admiration 
for Ivie completed the change in his sentiments, and 
although he felt no call to subscribe to the Covenants, 
and no inclination to put his own neck into more 
danger than was necessary, by openly espousing the 
proscribed cause, he secretly resolved to aid it when- 
ever practicable. 

It was not honourable to take the pay of one side, 

X 


322 Graham McCall's Victory. 

and then, while doing so, to serve the other, of course. 
But he had been in a bad school of late for learning 
strict notions of honour, and, as he contrived to help 
Mary Blair and old Elspeth Spence in getting safe off 
with Mistress McCall from the hall of justice, he 
privately decided that he deserved a pat on the back 
for being a very good fellow. 

“Just fancy those women eluding even you!” 
ejaculated a wondering companion, who had been as 
much deceived as Flemming had intended folks 
should be by his great show of fruitless activity. 
He nodded his head with a knowing air at his 
comrade. 

“ Ah, my boy, women are as hard to catch as 
weasels, and as slippery as eels. But trust me to 
remember the looks of this lot, and if I come across 
them again — ah, that’s all ! If I do, then you shall 
see what you shall see.” 

The other grinned, and on his side nodded his head 
sagaciously. He thought he knew that the poor 
creatures would meet with all the rougher treatment 
then for having escaped now. He would have been 
rather surprised had he known that Flemming had 
actually made an appointment with one of that “lot” 
for the coming night. 


CHAPTER XXXIII. 


THE BEST OF THE CHEESE INSIDE. 

ARY BLAIR was what the Americans 
would call “ particular cute.’' It had not 
taken her above a quarter of a minute to 
discover that the English soldier who had 
been appointed to take Mistress McCall into custody 
was, in reality, helping the poor lady’s well-wishers to 
hide her away out of his sight. Upon finding this 
Mary drew cautiously and quickly back to his side, 
plucking him by the sleeve as she breathed in his ear : 

“The Lord’s blessing on you. Where is William 
Blair ? ” 

“Cathedral door at eight,” muttered back Flem- 
ming; and accordingly to the cathedral Mary made 
her way at the hour named, half-hoping that this 
most unexpected dragoon-friend would present her 
there and then with her liberated husband. A pro- 
portionate pang of disappointment struck to her 
heart when she saw him sauntering up to her, as 
though by accident, alone. 

X 2 



3 2 4 


Graham McC all's Victory. 


Regardless of prudence for the moment, in her 
anxiety, she stretched her hands towards him, gasping 
aloud, “ My husband.” 

But her forgetfulness nearly cost her dear. As I 
have already told you, Flemming had a due regard 
for his own life, and growling an impatient oath at 
women’s stupidity, he turned sharply on his heel, 
and strode away. Blank despair rooted Mary Blair 
to the spot, and it was well for her that it did so, 
seeing that any attempt at following the man would 
have sealed him in his irritated determination to 
have nothing more to do with such danger-courting 
individuals. 

He marched off some hundred yards or so, head in 
the air and brows bent. Then he heard a woman’s 
voice at an open door say, “ I vie, my bairn.” The 
woman’s voice was hard and rough ; the bairn she 
addressed was a big, loutish, red-headed fellow. But 
the name conjured back the memories of things that 
were softening the sold : er’s tough heart. He turned 
again, and retraced his steps to the cathedral. 

“ Don’t speak to me,” he muttered sharply, “ but 
listen. Your husband has been removed this evening 
to an upper room in the temporary prison in Gallows 
Street, to make way for a batch of stronger prisoners. 
He has a companion, a petty offender of little 
account, but hale. Friends are allowed the privilege 
of feeding the prisoners, you know, at their own 
expense, and a rope is better worth having than the 
inside of a loaf of bread, sometimes.” 


The Best of the Cheese Inside . 325 


These sentences were all uttered rapidly, almost 
in one breath, and before the listener had been 
thoroughly able to understand whether they conveyed 
any intelligible hint to her, the speaker of them was 
gone. 

“No longer in a dungeon.” That was Mary’s first 
distinct reflection upon what she had just been told. 
There followed the next item. She might carry food 
to her sick husband. She looked up and down the 
dark streets eagerly. But it was foolish to do so at 
such an hour as that. She remembered that it was 
so, the next instant. Besides, visits were not allowed 
to be made to prisoners at night, nor to their prisons 
either. She must wait until the morning, at any rate, 
with what patience she could. Perhaps the stranger 
Englishman had given her something else to ponder 
over, by which to help the patience ? 

Ah ! yes. What was that he had said ? Some- 
what about a rope — a rope being of more use to 
folks, it might happen, than the inside of a loaf of 
bread. “The — in — in — side — of,” repeated * Mary, 
slowly and ponderingly. 

And then a light broke over her whole face, and 
she darted back to the tall old house within whose 
walls lay the terror-stricken cobbler-spy, and her own 
two friends. 

“ I am going back/’ she whispered, when she had 
mounted to the room wherein her step-sister sat with 
Mistress McCall, and had closed the door behind her. 
“ I am going back — now ! ” 


j 2 6 Graham McCall's Victory . 

“ Going back ! ” cried Elspeth Spence, craning her 
neck forward, and staring at her sister as though she 
thought she had gone demented. Mary nodded her 
head vehemently, and laid her hand over the old 
woman’s mouth at the same time. She was cautious 
enough now to win Flemming’s approval if he had 
been by to note it. They were beneath the roof of a 
Nicodemus, something of Flemming’s own type, one 
friendly to the Covenanters, but by stealth in these 
days of fiery trial, and Mary Blair dared risk her 
present secret with no cowards. Lest it should be 
overheard by such she only told the half of it even to 
her two companions. 

“ I set out for Blair’s Farm now, to-night. Ere the 
week is out I pray that I may be back again. May 
the Lord in His mercy watch over us, and all dear 
to us ” 

And with little more of farewell or of preparation 
the heavy-hearted wife set out on her solitary winter 
tramp. The poor old shepherd burst into tears when 
he saw his mistress return as she had gone — alone. 

" Is the gude mon dead then ? ” he moaned. 

Mary shook her head in hasty denial. “Ah! may 
the Lord grant not,” she exclaimed. “ No, no, 
Donald. They have spared him yet, I trust. But he 
is nigh starved. I am to mak’ a big cheese to carry 
back to him.” 

And forgetting fatigue in anxiousness, she sprang 
up again from the settle and hurried away to her 
dairy. 


The Best of the Cheese Inside . 327 


“You rest, mistress, and I will mak’ ye the cheese 
the while,” said the old man ; but Mary looked more 
than half-frightened at the proposal. 

“The cheese is for my ain gude mon,” she said 
hotly. “ An’ my ain honds shall mak’ it.” 

And as a further proof of her jealous affection 
she shut herself into the dairy, and remained there 
until the great mass of white curd was fully formed 
and pressed, and laid neatly in a basket ready to be 
handed in to her husband by his guards, if she might 
not obtain the favour to hand it in to the beloved 
prisoner herself. 

“ Is it already set, mistress ? ” asked the old shep- 
herd and general help, as Mary Blair came forth into 
the house-place carrying the cheese. 

He bent his head over it, by way of answering his 
own question. As he did so he started slightly, lifted 
his eyes to his companion’s face, then dropped them 
again to the contents of the basket. Mary’s own 
eyes were so worn with weeping and want of sleep 
that only now, when her attention was thus aroused, 
did she perceive a darkness at one side of her cheese, 
as of something showing through the white curd. 
She beat a hasty retreat again, and when she once 
more appeared the whole surface of the tempting- 
looking food was one universal whiteness. 

A pitying neighbour from the nearest village 
carried her on horseback the greater part of her 
journey back to Edinburgh. She rested a few hours 
at her step-sister’s deserted shieling, and then walked 


328 Graham McCall's Victory . 


on to the city, and straight to the extemporized gaol 
where her husband was confined. 

The pulses of her heart throbbed with hope when 
she saw the friendly dragoon standing before the 
door. Footsore though she was, and almost sinking 
with exhaustion, she hastened her steps, and with her 
voice trembling so that she could hardly articulate 
she held her basket to him — 

“ Food, my maister — please — food — for my gude 
mon — one — William Blair — in — here.” 

Flemming laid his hand on the handle with a 
reassuring smile. “ And mighty appetising food 
it looks too,” he said. “ Let’s break off a mouthful 
or so before I take it in, hey, ma’am ? ” 

He stretched out the disengaged finger and thumb 
to do the deed at once without waiting for permission, 
and so terrified the poor woman that she burst into a 
scarcely-stifled shriek. The basket would certainly 
have dropped had not another hand than her own 
held it. 

“Why, you foolish creature,” muttered the dragoon, 
with a touch of compassion in his voice, “who 
was to suppose you’d take fright at a word like that? 
You’re as timid as a mouse.” He stooped nearer 
as though examining the curds, and there was a 
twinkle of amusement in his eyes as he added in a 
lower tone — “ Don’t be afraid that I will rob your 
good man of any of the — inside. Shall I tell him to 
eat that part to-night ? ” 

There was a slight emphasis on the “ to-night,” and 


The Best of the Cheese Inside. 


3 2 9 


Mary clasped her hands as she echoed it. “ Yes, 
to-night. Tell him to cut into the middle. The 
outside is frozen too hard to be good, I fear.” 

She was turning away when another thought struck 
her, and she raised her face to Flemming’s again — 
“ Sir, if I may not go to him, may I not at least see 
the window of the room wherein my husband is a 
prisoner ? ” 

A sharp-featured, surly-looking officer came up 
now to the pair, and questioned his subordinate with 
a voice and manner corresponding to his appearance 
But Flemming was as equal as usual to the occasion. 

“ The wife of the man who is to die to-morrow 
captain. She is pestering me to let her see the 
window of his room. I have ordered her off about 
her business.” 

“ Have you so ?” exclaimed the officer in a passion. 

“ And pray who are you, fellow, to dare to give orders 
here to any one without my leave ? Come with me, 
woman, and look up yon at that window at the side 
there, and pray that the miscreant rebel within may 
spend the fragment of life left to him in repenting of 
the base deeds which have woven him the hangman’s 
rope.” 

Mary Blair drew in her breath with a great sob. 
She did pray, and earnestly, no doubt of that, although 
her prayers did not take exactly the direction re- 
commended by the officer. This was the first word 
she had heard of the imminence of the fate threat- 
ening her husband. He must be saved from it 


330 


Graham McCall's Victory. 


to-night, or she would see him in this world no more. 
She felt as though she had a rope about her own neck 
strangling her as she gazed up at the window. 

Meanwhile Flemming hastened in with the cheese, 
chuckling to himself over the clever way in which 
he had worked upon the contradictory temper of 
his superior. 

“Just for all the world like a mule,” he muttered. 
“ If you want him to go one way you’ve nought to 
do but to drive him the other.” 

Flemming had a very personal “satisfaction, besides, 
in the turn affairs had taken, for now, whatever 
happened, no blame could be cast upon him for 
having shown the condemned man’s relatives where 
he lay. 

The next morning, when it was discovered that the 
bird was flown, he went so far as to venture on a 
reminder to the officer, who, under the facts of the 
case, dared do nothing but bite his lip and bear the 
implied rebuke. Flemming’s life would not have 
been worth many minutes’ purchase had another set 
of facts been known though, nor even if the clear and 
quick instructions had been overheard which he gave 
to William Blair when he handed him the cheese. 

Moving about while he was recommending the 
precise hour for breaking the cheese, his foot struck 
against something in the floor. “ Ah ! ” he said, with 
the air of a person just making a discovery. “ Only 
think ! A great iron ring here in the floor. And pretty 
strongly in too. It would be a heavy weight that 


The Best of the Cheese Inside. 


33 1 


would pull that out, I reckon. Why, they might hang 
you from that, out of the window here, my friend, and 
save all further trouble.” 

And with that cheering remark the dragoon took 
his leave, and proceeded an hour or so later to render 
the Blairs a further service, by inveigling a civilian 
friend into “ standing treat ” to his comrade who was 
to go on duty for the first watch that night. 

He had now done all he considered it safe to do 
for these Covenanters at the present crisis, and he 
took care to be a prominently visible member of a 
noisy drinking party at the other side of the city, at 
the time when he rightly concluded Mary Blair’s 
straining eyes were piercing the darkness up towards 
that side window through which her husband was 
effecting his escape. 

The contents of the cheese proved trustworthy, so 
did the iron ring in the floor, and two hours before 
midnight Mary and William Blair were out of Edin- 
burgh, on the road towards their own home. On and 
on they fled, as those flee who win life and liberty 
and happiness by flight. 

But the flight itself had to be managed prudently. 
Ere the faintest glimmer of dawn appeared husband 
and wife had to hide themselves like hunted animals 
in the frost-bound holes of the earth. And there 
they had to lie, the livelong day, until the thick veil 
of night allowed them courage to crawl forth once 
more, well-nigh frozen to death, and to pursue their 
way. 


33 2 


Graham McCall's Victory. 


Far and wide search was made for the escaped 
prize, but not again in the direction of his own home. 
“He would never be so foolhardy as to go there 
now,” decided his enemies. And Mary, trusting that 
this would be the mode of reasoning, led her husband 
there in safety, and hid him in the room in the wall 
within which the eloquent James Guthrie had found 
refuge for a few days, six years before. 

William Blair was sheltered there for many months, 
until the hottest fierceness of this especial wave of 
fiery persecution had burnt itself out ; until “ the 
authorities were becoming tired of their cruel work ; ” 
until “ a relenting, or a more cautious and considerate 
spirit had found its way into the administration. 
Scotland was affected at that juncture by English 
politics. The Court was disheartened by the dis- 
graces of the war with Holland, and the Prelatic 
party in Scotland lost a friend by the fall of 
Clarendon.” 

There was misery enough still inflicted upon the 
persecuted race. “ From Dalziel downwards, through 
a crowd of rapacious officers of the local courts, men 
held gifts of forfeitures or of fines which it was their 
interest to exact by form of law. It was a sort of 
license to pillage the helpless enemy in the courts of 
law.” 

But yet, bad as matters thus continued, there was 
this improvement, that men no longer went in such 
absolute and constant terror of their lives as they 
had done for those past bloodthirsty months; and 


The Best of the Cheese Inside . 333 


Mary Blair still had the unspeakable happiness of 
having her husband spared to her, and in all the 
fulness of restored health and vigour, although they 
had to find another and a more meagre home. 

But how about Ivie McCall and his mother ? 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 

ELSPETH SPENCE SPEAKS HER MIND. 

p^^OUGH-tongued and rough-tempered, but 
^ with a heart that Mistress McCall began 

to believe must have been even singularly 
F- |- enc i er i n girlhood’s days, before unknown 

troubles had given it an outer bitter case of hardness. 
Elspeth Spence I am writing of, as you no doubt 
guess, and what Ivie’s mother would have done 
without her at this juncture it is impossible to say. 
Personally she dared take no step to aid her son, or 
to hold communion with him. Indeed, it would of 
course have been a simple act of madness to make 
any such attempt, seeing that the closest watch had 
been set to discover her own hiding-place, in order to 
her own seizure and imprisonment. While she was 
free there was at least some reason to hope that fear 
of her future appeal to the Bishop of Dunblane might, 
to a certain degree, restrain the cruel proceedings of 
her boy’s tormentors ; but were they once able to 
secure her also, both would be completely at the 
mercy of their unjust and malicious judges. 


Elspeth Splice speaks her Mind, 335 


In this state of affairs old Elspeth Spence proved 
invaluable. Even her volubility she learnt to restrain 
in the presence of the meek and sorrow-stricken face 
of the widow. Perhaps she made herself amends out 
of doors, however, for her forbearance within ; certainly 
her blustering tongue and her blustering manners got 
even better known than of old in the streets and 
wynds of Edinburgh, and within the very halls of 
justice besides. 

“ Hech, then, are ye na feared to gang on that 
gate ?” exclaimed a man one day in mingled warning 
and surprise, as she was proclaiming, in no measured 
terms, her opinion of men and things in general, and of 
some men in particular. But he soon got his answer. 

Lean yellow arms akimbo, neck stretched forward 
till the head above it was level with the shoulders^ 
and sparks of eyes glinting through mere slits in the 
face, she echoed the word “ Fear ! ” with an accent o 
utter scorn that scarcely any man of modern times, 
however brave, could hope to emulate. “What 
should I fear, mon? The worst the servants o’ the 
evil one can do is ta burrn me for a witch. Let 
them do’t an’ they will. They’ll no find auld Elspeth 
gi’e them ony trouble to catch her.” 

The daring challenge was spoken like most of her 
speeches at the top pitch of her screeching voice, and 
there fell a hush of awed admiration upon her wide 
circle of auditors. But the hush was short, although 
the awe deepened as the indomitable old woman again 
broke the silence^ herself &nd her voice seeming to 


336 Graham McCall's Victory . 

have undergone a transformation in the brief interval. 
She had drawn herself up to the full height of her tall, 
gaunt figure, her eyes were wide, her long arms folded 
across her breast, and there was a depth and solemnity 
in her tones the more striking from the unexpectedness. 

“ Fear ! ” she repeated again, in a way that thrilled 
to the heart of every hearer as she cast her searching 
glance slowly round : “ Fear, do you say ! I say unto 
you, be not afraid of them that kill the body, and 
after that have no more that they can do. But I will 
forewarn you whom ye shall fear. Fear Him, which, 
after He hath killed, hath power to cast into hell ; 
yea, I say unto you, fear Him ! ” 

Again she paused, and again she looked slowly 
round upon the crowd. “ Hech, men ! ” she con- 
tinued, with somewhat more of her customary manner, 
‘when ance ye ha’ getten that lesson right hame to 
your very hairrt o’ hairrts, ye ken weel eneuch what it 
is to feel scorn for the biggest o’ mortal man’s power, 
wi’ the wee bit limits putten ontil it by the will o’ 
Him wha is Almighty.” 

She was right there, and in her assertion lay the 
secret not only of the strength of many of the 
noblest of the Covenanters, but of the martyrs for 
conscience’ sake throughout all ages. The greater 
fear must cast out the lesser one. 

However, few enough of the Edinburgh crowd 
were freer then than the generality of folks are now, 
from a very lively terror of their fellow-men ; and at 
this moment there was a hasty dispersal of Elspeth 


Elspeth Spence speaks her Mind . 337 


Spence’s companions as two well-known forms were 
seen advancing with haughty mien along the street. 

Archbishop Sharp and General Dalziel. The 
Archbishop’s countenance was noteworthy for its 
supercilious pride, as he moved forward looking 
neither to the right nor left, the mean rabble of his 
fellow-creatures quite beneath his lofty notice, unless 
when he was ordering their punishment. 

The costly attire of the Archbishop was in strong 
contrast to the tight, straight jockey-coat, the alto- 
gether almost comic simplicity of his companion’s 
appearance. In equal contrast was the manner of 
the two autocrats. The General’s quick, light-blue 
orbs were turned here and there and everywhere with 
nearly every step he took. 

“ Disperse that mob ! ” he shouted, as he came in 
sight of old Elspeth’s gathering. 

But the soldiers were spared the trouble of 
obedience, for before the words were well out of his 
mouth the people had dispersed themselves, down 
every alley and deep doorway that offered them the 
quickest hiding-place. Only the old woman stood 
her ground. Her boast of fearlessness had been no 
piece of vain braggadocio. Stretching out a lean 
forefinger towards the one — James Sharp — she cried : 

“ See, men and angels, yon goes the renegade, the 
perjurer.” 

“ Silence, old hag ! ” shouted General Dalziel. 
“ Get you gone, or I’ll have you burnt for the hideous 
old witch you are.” 

y 


33 8 Graham McCall's Victory . 


“Ah — ha!” she laughed shrilly. “I reckon ’at 
ye will when the Lord permits. I know ye, Thomas 
Dalziel, and the Father o’ all blackness knows ye 
better. I doobt na’ ye’ll burrn me, ye Muscovy beast, 
as ye ha’ roasted men before.” 

At that scathing speech the General hurst into a 
furious imprecation, dashed forward from the Prelate’s 
side, and snatching his sword from the scabbard he 
struck her so passionately upon the mouth with its 
hilt that the blood streamed down. 

“Verily, this is a brave, braw mon’s wark,” she 
said coolly, as she fixed her eyes upon his for a 
moment, and then let them fall again upon the 
crimson stains, dying the white neckerchief which she 
wore folded across her chest. 

“ Hech ! ” she continued with her cold, sneering 
tones, “ this is a grand fine deed ye ha’ dune. Ye 
are a mon and a soldier, wha make your boast o’ a 
mon’s honour, an’ a soldier’s honour ! And ye ha’ 
stricken a woman, one moreover wha is auld, wi’ ane 
foot i’ the grave for age and spare dieting. Will ye 
no strike me again ? Ye had better to. Ye know I 
am no able to defend mysel’, nor to gie ye your 
buffets back again.” 

Dr. James Sharp had come up by this time, and 
he now turned imperiously to his companion — as 
though impatient of the undignified, disagreeable 
scene. 

“ General, let me give orders to your guard to take 
the old beldam into custody.” 


Elspeth Spence speaks her Mind. 339 


But Dalziel had recovered himself by this time, and 
regained his usual self-possession. “ No, no,” he said 
hastily with a deepened tinge in his bronzed cheeks. 
“ No, no. Let us pass on, and get out of sight and 
hearing of the wretched hag at once, lest she tempt 
me to forget myself again. Take her into custody 
indeed ! What are you thinking of, man ? A fine 
handle we should give to the lampooners, if we let 
them get hold of a tale that we were frightened by a 
wretched old woman’s spiteful tongue.” 

And so, one form of cowardice conquering another, 
Elspeth Spence was left yet for another space without 
further molestation, and she returned by a circuitous 
route to the present abiding-place of herself and 
Kate McCall. On reaching the door of the lady’s 
apartment she paused without, a few moments, listen- 
ing. Once she had awakened her, by her careless 
entrance, out of the brief respite from sorrow of a 
deep sleep, and she had taken double heed to her 
movements ever since. 

Hearing no sound within she softly entered, and 
found the occupant on her knees, her face buried in 
her hands, her spirit too absorbed in prayer to be 
awake to externals. More than three weeks had 
passed since she had stood in the Council Chamber, as 
witness to the agonies inflicted upon her son. During 
all that time she had not once dared to try to see him. 
Had it not been for old Elspeth’s ingenious ques- 
tionings she would not have known even so much as 

whether he were yet alive. She would have had 

Y 2 


34 ° 


Graham McCall's Victory. 


nothing to encourage her to persevere in her own 
concealment, or to maintain her hope. 

“ But we have a friend,” declared the old woman 
to her again and again when she grew most de- 
spondent. “ He has done the best o’ good services 
to the Blairs, and he is still more ready to gi’e help 
to ye and to yon bairn Ivie. Be ye not faithless, 
but believing in the God o’ all mercy. And be 
patient yet a wee while langer.” 

This patience for yet a little while longer she had 
been anxiously, although somewhat unnecessarily, 
urging by way of implied comfort, just before she 
had gone out to meet her late encounter. But to 
tell the truth, her own patience was fast waning, and 
she had learnt news out of doors that h id almost 
crushed out her hopes too, as far as earthly happiness 
was concerned, for these new objects of her affec- 
tionate interest. 

Ivie McCall was so far recovered from his late bar- 
barous treatment as to be able to sit up for half-an- 
hour or so at a time. Flemming had passed her in 
the street, sauntering along as though unconscious of 
her neighbourhood, and he had muttered to her, in 
passing, these significant tidings. A few days more 
and the lad would doubtless be well enough to be 
put to the torture again— or— strong enough to be 
put to death. 

It was these reflections that had roused her to the 
especial spiritedness of her invectives against the 
present laws and their administrators, and it may be 


Elspeth Spence speaks her Mind. 341 


pretty safely declared that if she had been really the 
witch some folks believed her, and endowed with 
supernatural powers, she would have indulged in a 
spice of persecuting malice in her turn. She did go 
so far, more than once, as to ponder over in her mind 
what form her punishment of the persecutors should 
take. They should be mice with no holes to run to, 
and she would be the typical black cat. Or they 
should be toads and she the fork-tongued snake 
waiting to swallow them. Or, — and this thought 
pleased her wrathful fancy most — 

James Sharp should be a captive bound hand and 
foot, and she should be armed with a sharp, two- 
edged sword to slay him. And he should crawl, 
grovelling on the ground, to her feet to implore, 
to crave, to cringe for mercy. And she would show 
him none. She little thought how near the picture, 
drawn by her revengeful imagination, came to a future 
truth. 

Meanwhile she returned to Kate McCall, the 
widow with an only son, and her dreams of supposi- 
titious powers faded, leaving her with the full con- 
sciousness of herself as a helpless old woman in the 
presence of a gigantic sorrow. 

“ But the Lord is Almighty/’ she murmured, not 
in the tone with which she had addressed the mob 
a while since, but almost as though her words were 
a questioning petition. They roused Kate McCall. 
Lifting her bent head she answered in the same low, 
gentle tones as of old : 


34 * 


Graham McCall's Victory . 


“Yes, dear Elspeth, He is Almighty and all- 
merciful. It would be no help to me to doubt that, no 
consolation to fear that there is none to whom I may 
cry — ‘ Deliver my darling, my only one, from the 
power of the lions.’ ” 

“ But how if He does not deliver him ? ” 

The question burst from Elspeth’s mouth almost 
against her will it seemed. In the presence of un- 
belief or impiety her own faith glowed with a steady 
flame. But in presence of this sorely-tried but un- 
shaken faith of. Ivie’s mother she had now and again, 
of late, felt impatient misgivings as to the perfect 
love of One, who could allow His children to be so 
sorely afflicted. Or — if the love were perfect, then 
could the power be so ? For herself, personally, she 
could see through the utmost that man’s malignity 
could accomplish, to the Home beyond, but when she 
contemplated the sufferings of these two hapless 
beings, for whom her old rough heart had grown soft 
again, a thick veil rose, for her, between her sight and 
Heaven, and she felt well-nigh blind. 

" But how if He does not deliver him ? ” she re- 
peated almost fiercely, as if she were half- indignant 
with the trustfulness. “ How will you say then, 
Mistress McCall ? ” 

The younger woman lifted the Bible that lay upon 
the chair at which she had been kneeling. It was 
open, and the traces of tears were upon the page, but 
the voice was clear and steady that read out an 
answer already taken home to the reader’s soul. 


Elspeth Spence speaks her Mind. 343 


“ ‘ Who shall separate us from the love of Christ ? 
shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, 
or nakedness, or peril, or sword ?’” As it is written, 
“‘For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are 
accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all 
these things we are more than conquerors, through 
him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither 
death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor 
powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor 
height, nor depth, nor any other creature — ’ ” 

“ Do ye mark that, dear Elspeth, the whole fulness 
of the assurance that the Lord’s inspired apostle gies 
us : ‘ For I am persuaded not any creature shall be 
able to separate us from the love of God, which is in 
Christ Jesus our Lord.’ ” 

She bowed her head over the precious words, and 
again tears fell upon the page ; but this time they 
were tears of gratitude. 

“ Elspeth,” said the low, sweet voice, “ you see, 
my darling is delivered from the lions. It is no 
matter of doubt, any longer. No more a matter of 
question, whether the Lord will deliver him or no. 
He hath accepted the Lamb, who died to deliver us 
for his Saviour, and I am henceforth persuaded that 
nothing shall be able to separate him from the Rock 
of Ages — from the love of God.” 

Sorrow had turned the beautiful sunny-hued, 
bright hair silver- white ; but the promise of God stood 
sure, for all that “ My grace is sufficient for thee, 
for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” 



CHAPTER XXXV. 

THREE TAPS AT THE DOOR . 

was not for some hour or more after 
Elspeth Spence had returned to the 
friendly shelter of the old house that Kate 
McCall asked her if she had learnt any 
news out of doors. And when she did put the ques- 
tion it was some minutes before she received any 
answer. A deep, long-drawn sigh at last proved 
more persuasive than words had done. Elspeth 
dropped the wooden spoon into her basin of porridge 
and grunted out with pretended ungraciousness : 

“Ye may ha’ trust enough in the Lord, but ye ha’ 
sma’ trust in me. Had I had news to gie, think ye 
as I wad na ha’ gied it ? ” 

Mistress McCall’s hand went with a quick pressure 
over her heart as she replied : “ At any rate I under- 
stand that you had no good news to give. But I 
would fain hear even the worst you have learnt. Does 
my child still live ? ” 

“Better were it if he did na,” ejaculated the old 
woman. “ He is no only alive but he is fast gather- 



Three Taps at the Door . 


345 


ing back his braw young strength again, I am telt. 
And if nane come to help before the morrow mom 
he is to be haled before the Judges again, put to the 
question again, and, if he still keeps a silent tongue 
in’s heid, he is to be forthwith hangit. Ye know all 
now, and enough ! ” 

“ My brother ! ” moaned the poor young mother. 
“ Surely he is well enough by this, to give us help ? ” 

Elspeth Spence shook her head. “ My messenger 
has just returned. The Bishop is still in’s chamber 
wi’ a heavy, racking cough upon him, and surrounded 
by those who let nane coom anigh him but such as 
please themsels. It is no in that direction ye maun 
seek for help.” 

There was another low, deep sigh. “ Your mes- 
senger with the flask. Has he had time, as yet, to 
fulfil his errand ? ” 

Elspeth scowled. “ Ah ! the villain. Time, and to 
spare would he ha’ had if Elspeth Spence had been 
at his heels on his road. I warrant ye he has been 
drinking, an’ feasting, an’ sleeping, on’s journey, as if 
’twere a marriage message for anither he was gane 
aboot, an’ no ane o’ life and death for one worth a 
hundred o’ his worthless self.” 

It was the more generous of Elspeth to speak so, 
seeing that the “ worthless self,” was her own cousin, 
who had not only gone on this troublesome and 
dangerous journey, but through whose hospitality, 
and secret warmth for “the Cause,” they enjoyed 
their present shelter. But you know Elspeth always 


346 Graham McCall's Victory . 


did avail herself of a relation’s privilege to speak as 
she chose of her belongings. Some ill-natured folks 
said that she had done so, with regard to her husband, 
so freely that he had really died a year after marriage 
of nothing but the vain attempt to live down her 
avowed bad opinion of him. 

Certainly, he did happen to have an ague-fever too, 
but every one who knew his wife regarded that as 
quite an insignificant matter in comparison with the 
other. As for her cousin-messenger, to whom she 
had entrusted the precious vase, it was next door to 
an impossibility for him to have got to London and 
back in the time that had elapsed since she bid him 
God-speed on his journey. 

At least — well — you know I only said “ next door 
to an impossibility,” not one altogether to be insur- 
mountable by an individual endowed with special 
energy, vigour, and determination. I am glad I did 
not say “ quite an impossibility,” for even as Elspeth 
finished speaking, and Mistress McCall sank down 
upon her knees again, in prayer to the all-powerful 
Father of the powerless, there came three distinct 
single taps upon the floor just without their apartment. 
A low cry burst simultaneously from their lips. 
They darted towards the door, and for some 
moments stood there staring at it, and clutching at 
each other’s hands. Were these three taps accidental, 
or were they the sign agreed upon ? They dared not 
let themselves hope, for the disappointment would be 
so terrible. 


Three Taps at the Door, 


347 


As they thus waited, breathless, speechless, still 
but for trembling, the three taps came again, nearer 
to the door this time, quite close outside. So close 
that they could hear the breathing of the one who 
gave them : 

“ Speak — answer him,” gasped Kate McCall 
hoarsely. 

“ I — I canna ! ” gasped back Elspeth. “ It’s no 
preceesely like my cousin’s tappings.” 

And neither was it "preceesely” her cousin who 
gave them. Perhaps the sound of her voice had 
penetrated to the corridor, or perhaps whoever it was 
who waited outside had grown tired of waiting. The 
latch of the door was pressed, the door opened, and 
the first thing that met Mistress McCall’s eyes was 
the well-known Venice flask. Her breath came back 
to her then, and she fell to sobbing, with a great flood 
of tears raining from her eyes. 

Not the Venice flask only was there, but the giver of 
it also, himself, travel-worn, and rather haggard-look- 
ing with his long, hurried journey, but upright as ever, 
with all his grand breadth and height, and with the 
same expression of frank kindness and resolution in 
his eyes by which he so easily won the confidence of 
all those with whom he came in contact. 

In five minutes the two women knew all the most 
important items of the information he was there to 
give them. Carrying out his constantly adopted 
policy of keeping himself in the background, in all 
his favourable efforts on behalf of the Covenanters, he 


348 Graham McCall's Victory . 


had entrusted it to the cautious and skilful manage- 
ment of his foster-mother’s cousin, to deliver the 
King’s pardon for Ivie to the proper authorities, and 
himself had hastened on to bear the glad tidings 
instantly to the mother. 

Obeying natural impulse she was for flying out at 
once, to go and meet her boy as he should come forth 
from the prison-doors. Fortunately her companions 
had calmer heads upon their shoulders just then than 
she had, and they kept her safe in her hiding-place. 

“ I have brought no free pardon for you, unhappily, 
for your having sheltered one of the rebels,” said 
Henry Savile. “ It was not until we were already 
more than a day’s journey from London that I learnt 
you were in any peril, and then I dared not lose time 
by going back.” 

“It is weel, verily, that ye did na so,” broke in 
Elspeth. 

“ So I have discovered within this half-hour,” replied 
Savile. “ But it would be small satisfaction to Ivie 
McCall to find, on coming out of prison, that he had 
but made way for his mother to take his place in the 
dungeon. At least let us endeavour that you may 
keep your freedom until you shall have had the 
happiness to meet once more.” 

“ Please God,” murmured Kate McCall, with the 
old tight clasp of the almost transparent hands. 
" But when, think you, they will be merciful enough 
to let him forth from his captivity ? ” 

“ For the mercy,” was the bitter-toned reply, “ J 


Three Taps at the Door . 


349 


can say nought. But the King’s order is for the lad’s 
instant release, and however they may strain and 
distort laws to their own ends, they dare not disobey 
an express command. Another hour, or at the most 
two, should see him here in your arms.” 

The mother stretched them out unconsciously as 
he spoke, with a scarcely-suppressed cry. As she 
became aware of her act a faint colour fluttered 
into the pale, thin cheeks, and she murmured in timid 
accents of apology : 

“Ah ! sir, pardon my foolish impatience. Since I 
know that the Lord hath hearkened to my prayers, 
and attended to the voice of my supplications, 
even to the granting me joy in this world, my heart 
seemeth to be set free to ache with longing to 
behold my child’s face again, as it hath not ached 
before.” 

“ Would that I had power to shorten the minutes 
of its aching ! ” was the earnest reply. 

And, scarcely better able to keep down his rising 
impatience than the mother herself, he soon after 
quitted the apartment to take up his watch outside 
the house. He left his promise with the two women 
that he would return so soon as Elspeth’s cousin and 
the boy appeared in sight. 

Had he stayed for that to come to pass their sus- 
pense would have endured beyond their strength to 
bear. Hidden within the long, dark passage of a 
Scotch entrance Savile had watched the corner of 
the street for more than an hour, when at last an 


35 ° 


Graham McCall's Victory. 


angry exclamation broke from his lips and he stamped 
his foot. 

“ What have you done with the lad ? ” he asked 
sharply as he was joined by the man who had been 
the companion of his long journey. “Where have 
you left him ? ” 

“ In the same place where he was thrown with a 
crushed leg nigh a month ago,” was the gloomy reply. 
“ I doobt, my maister, there’ll be foul play intended to 
yon puir bairn, Ivie McCall, for all you ha’ dune to 
rescue him fra the hands o’ the Philistines.” 

“ But His Majesty’s free pardon,” exclaimed the 
Englishman. “ Where is that ? ” 

“ In the honds o’ him wha has made a compact wi* 
the Evil One,” replied Sandy in the same heavy tones. 
“ Him wha was a Covenanter, but wha now ca’s 
himsel’ an Archbishop. He took the bit paper. 
I was glad to gie it to him, hoping to see him look 
fashed-like an’ disappointed — he did so for a wee 
meenute, but then — ” 

The man paused, almost with a groan, of mingled 
anger and despair. His companion regarded him 
with the deepest anxiety, as he urged him to proceed. 
“ But what then ? Hath the pardon become a dead 
letter ? — Hath he already caused the murder of the 
boy, think you ? ” 

“ Soon will have done so,” was the low, significant 
answer, “ if we have nought to trust to but the King’s 
pardon. When yon James Sharp had read it once, 
or mebbe the three times through, a glint shot into 


Three Taps at the Door . 


35 1 


his een, and he lukkit at me keenlike, and then spake 
in a girding tone to one beside him — * Ah ! 5 he said, 

‘ Our Most Gracious Majesty hath been pleased to 
send to us here a free pardon, for one Ivie McCann, a 
young lad of that pestilent set of wild Covenanting 
rebels. We have nane by that name now in our 
chaairge, and so the pardon is nought.’ ” 

“ ‘ The pardon is for Ivie McCall ! ’ I cried. And 
he glowered at me wi’s evil een. ‘ Do you think to 
contradict the King?’ he said. ‘His Majesty hath 
writ here a pardon for ane, Ivie McCann, and for yon 
Ivie McCall, would you win one for him likewise ye 
had need to hire the wind to travel by, for he dies the 
morn.'* And he hasted on to the castle to gie the 
order, belike.” 

Strong man as Henry Savile was, the light seemed 
to fade from before his sight, and for some moments 
he felt as though his reason was in danger. How go 
back to that young yet white-haired mother within 
there, and tell her that the hope, with which he had 
broken down her sustaining force of resignation, was 
a mocking one. He almost wished that the sensation 
of numbness with which he was overpowered might 
be the presage of death, so thankfully would he have 
been spared being a witness of her sorrow. But 
a soft “Hist!” beside him brought him back to 
consciousness. 

A dragoon had hastily sl'pped into the dark entry, 
in a way that seemed to signify a wish to avoid 
observation by those without, and there was equal 


35 2 


Graham Me C all^s Victory. 


caution in his whisper to the man, Sandy Fraser. 
He evidently did not see his own countryman as he 
muttered quickly to the other : 

“ Hark ye then, and pluck up your wits. I am a 
friend to yon poor brave boy they have a mind to 
make away with. I have followed you, to tell you 
that the guard is changed at ten at night, and the 
keys change hands at the same time. One or two 
of the guards are strangers here.” 

With this somewhat meagre aid and information 
the man was about to slip out into the street again, 
but a detaining hand came down upon his shoulder 
from an unexpected side. 

“Hold, Flemming,” said a firm low voice. “And 
do not shake and shiver like a frightened girl. You 
have told me welcome news. Help us to rescue that 
lad to-night, and you shall go to England with me 
next week, and have a recommendation to the service 
of the King, himself. I have favour enough with your 
commander to win you from his company.” 

Flemming no sooner recognized the voice than he 
regained his self-possession. “ If you will keep me 
in your own service, Sir Henry, I will do all I dare. 
But, an’ you will let me leave this suspected neigh- 
bourhood now, and come to me openly but alone, 
anigh Holyrood Palace an hour hence, we can discuss 
all plans, and draw no suspicion on us either.” 

This plea seemed so reasonable, as well as prudent, 
that Savile at once agreed to the proposition, and as 
Flemming stole away the travellers mounted with 


Three Taps at the Door. 


353 


renewed hope to the pair of women so anxiously 
awaiting them. A few words together on the way up 
arranged what was to be said, and although Mistress 
McCall felt a pang of disappointment when they 
appeared without her son, the tranquillity of their 
countenances forbid her to suffer any fresh misgivings. 
She found it perfectly natural moreover that her 
friends should judge it expedient for her and Ivie to 
meet outside Edinburgh, and after such delay as 
should tend to baffle spies hoping to discover the 
mother by means of the son. 

Happily for the lady no one had in any way thought 
to associate her with Elspeth Spence, and when the 
old woman left Edinburgh on the road to Leith that 
afternoon, accompanied by a tatterdemalion-looking 
fishwife, the younger woman received many a jeering 
piece of advice to part company again with the old 
witch, whose stormy temper would turn her fish bad 
before she had time to sell it, and whose tongue would 
talk her head off. 

Three or four miles from the city Mistress McCall 
stopped and looked back. Her heart began to sink 
within her. She was leaving her boy, forsaking him 
she almost felt, and perhaps — such things had been — 
perhaps she was being tricked into providing for her 
own safety by false assurances. 

As that doubt entered her mind she suddenly faced 
round, and took half-a-dozen steps on the return road. 
Elspeth stared at her for a few seconds in amaze, and 

then making a tolerably shrewd guess at the real state 

Z 


35 4 


Graham McCall's Victory . 


of the case she moved as suddenly as her companion 
had done. Snatched up the frail, slight figure in her 
muscular old arms, bore it back to the spot just left, 
set it down again, then stamped at it and railed at it, 
for its mad foolishness, in a simulated fury that com- 
pletely terrified Mistress McCall into passive obedience 
to a wild will which she found herself utterly unable 
to resist. 

As the night came on, and she sank down at last, 
overpowered with fatigue, Elspeth Spence conde- 
scended to unbend once more from her austerity, and 
while doing all that lay in her power for her com- 
panion’s bodily comfort she consoled her mind also, 
with assurances that it was certainly best for I vie, as 
well as for herself, that she should thus have left the 
city. Meantime, just at that precise hour bad was 
the best, as the saying is, for I vie McCall. He was 
being put to moral torture if not physical. That free 
pardon may or may not have borne his own name 
spelt properly. That was a matter to lie upon James 
Sharp’s conscience to the day of his death. Two 
people at any rate declared that the name in the 
suppressed pardon was correctly spelt. But however 
that might be, the Archbishop had no real shadow of 
a doubt, all men knew, for whom it was intended, and 
the discovery that the boy had other friends powerful 
enough to obtain it for him, besides the Bishop of 
Dunblane, warned him that he must act quickly if he 
would secure full revenge for the boy’s fearless words 
of rebuke. 


Three Taps at the Door . 


355 


A mean, cowardly revenge it would be at the best, 
but he added a heightening touch to it. He paid I vie 
a visit in his cell, and tried by renewed threats to 
extort desired information from him as to some of the 
hiding-places of the persecuted brethren. But lin- 
gering weeks of pain and suspense had not broken 
Ivie’s spirit, and although he had an intense, almost 
a sick, craving to see his mother once more before he 
died, even that longing he could forego sooner than 
faithfulness and his honour. 

“You have forgotten the words of our Covenant/ 
he said, “but I have not. You and I have both sworn 
to stand by true Covenanters, and to aid them and 
support them even to our life’s extremity. We have 
sworn this by the great name of the Lord our God, 
and I dare not break my vow.” 

“And I,” said the Archbishop with tones of sup- 
pressed passion ; “ and I, by the same name, swear 
that you shall die ere this hour to-morrow, and neither 
will I dare to break that vow.” 

Unsuspected ears heard those impious words by 
which the God of infinite justice and mercy was called 
upon as a witness to so base an oath, and a stern 
grave smile rested upon an unseen face. For purposes 
of State espionage a little chamber had once been 
artfully contrived in the wall of the room that had 
been James Guthrie’s cell the days before his execu- 
tion, and which was now that of Ivie McCall. It was 
entered from within a chimney, and a secret spring in 
the interior gave admittance to the cell. 


35 6 Graham McCall's Victory. 


Lounging about the castle in a desultory fashion 
some years ago, Henry Savile had made this interest- 
ing discovery, and finding himself to be the sole 
possessor of a forgotten secret he kept it for possible 
future use. By means of it the minister would have 
been saved, had he not refused to make a false declar- 
ation to the sentinel who would have had to be passed 
outside. In the present instance any such difficulties 
were obviated by Flemming’s co-operation. Besides, 
very fortunately for himself and his friends at this 
juncture, I vie was small and emaciated, and con- 
sequently light and weak. 

The plans were well made and well carried through. 
At ten at night the guard was changed. At one spot 
there was a sudden hubbub. The guards’ lanterns 
were extinguished. There were sounds as of men 
shouting with drunken laughter, and high above all, 
after a minute or two, could be distinguished the voice 
of the well-known clever and active dragoon, Flem- 
ming, shouting in stentorian and most solemn tones 
for aid to secure a spirit, a hobgoblin, an emissary 
from Satan himself. 

When his comrades surrounded him, and lights 
were brought, he presented a pitiable-looking spectacle. 
Face and hands scratched and bleeding, clothes torn, 
hair seemingly well-nigh clawed out of his head. 

“ But what of all that ?” he exclaimed, turning upon 
his wondering companions as though in towering 
indignation at their dilatoriness. “ It’s not my injuries 
I am thinking of, but the disgrace to the Service. I 


Three Taps at the Door . 


357 


kept hold of the wriggling thing as long as ever I 
could, but it twisted out of my grasp at last, and 
where it has gone I don’t know.” 

“ Where did it come from ? ” asked the officer in 
command. 

“From the lower regions in the first instance, I 
should say,” was the sullen-voiced answer. “But 
down from yon window just now, with a straight 
pounce upon my head.” 

And he put up his hand and rubbed his head, as 
though he still felt the terrifying incubus there of 
which he spoke. And the whole of his companions, 
officer and all, stared up at the window and into the 
air, and on to his head, and from head to foot of their 
dishevelled comrade, with open-mouthed, aghast cre- 
dulity not badly matched by some of the beliefs of 
the wiseacres of this nineteenth century. 

Meantime, while Flemming was telling his marvel- 
lous tale, two men, with a lame boy between them, 
were hurrying away from the castle as fast as the 
knowledge that a life hung upon their movements 
could urge their feet to go. Those who had put the 
lights out at Sandy Fraser’s instigation made an easy 
escape, owing to the guard being strangers to the 
locality, and to the kind of people they had to deal 
with. The thickness of the night had also been an 
aid. Indeed everything had appeared to combine to 
save I vie McCall, at this twelfth hour, from a cruel 
death. 

A week later Henry Savile contrived to send him 


35 8 


Graham McCalls Victory. 


over to Ireland disguised as a fisher-boy, Mistress 
McCall going with her son in the costume that had 
aided her own escape from the persecuting enemies. 
Old Elspeth was invited to go with them, but she 
stoutly refused to be driven, as she phrased it, “ by 
fause-hearted renegades and loons fra her ain braw 
native land.” 

Ivie would fain have said the same, and acted upon 
the saying too, as resolutely as the old woman, but 
fortunately for his mother’s peace of mind, and for his 
own future usefulness to his fellow-creatures, his 
injuries rendered him utterly helpless in the hands of 
those who had taken upon themselves the present 
charge of him. 

The necessary haste and roughness of his rescue 
from Edinburgh Castle had brought back a fresh attack 
of inflammation in the tortured leg, and for some time 
there appeared every probability that he would have 
to lose it. But perfect rest and tranquillity, and his 
mother’s untiring loving care, helped his vigorous 
constitution to fight through this peril, and after nearly 
a year of helplessness in a strange land he began to 
move about again. 

About that time the incessant traveller, Henry 
Savile, paid his proUgis a visit. He found some 
difficulty in recognizing Ivie, who was no longer a 
small boy in appearance, but almost as tall as himself. 

“ Well ! ” he exclaimed in amazement, “ who would 
have supposed that any one could be so cltered in a 
twelvemonth ? Lucky for you, friend Ivie, that you 


Three Taps at the Door . 


359 


were not a lanky fellow like this when I smuggled you 
out of the castle that night, or even Flemming dared 
not have been so blind as not to see you, perchance.” 

Kate McCall’s hands went together in their fervent 
clasp as those past dread memories were recalled, 
while Ivie asked what had become of the soldier, who 
had contrived to show him many merciful acts of 
kindness during his suffering inprisonment. 

Sir Henry Savile smiled. “The brave dragoon 
hath adopted a new profession. From that night he 
feigned to have his brain turned, ever pressing his 
hand upon his head declaring he felt a weight there. 
Certainly he did, — the weight of his own hand. But 
the authorities believed him to have been stricken 
there, by the one who had contrived your release. 
And considering that he was henceforth likely to be 
somewhat worse than useless they readily enough 
turned him adrift. He groweth strawberries now, for 
a sister I have living far away south, in Sussex.” 

And to that far-away southern county of England 
Savile took Ivie McCall and his mother three years 
later, once again to be with their relative, the learned 
Divine and good Christian, Robert Leighton. 

From Dunblane the pious Bishop was translated 
to the Diocese of Glasgow, but finding himself increas- 
ingly unable to stem the tide of cruelty and injustice, 
and almost broken-hearted with the misery and wrong- 
doing with which he was surrounded, he finally resigned 
all his ecclesiastical dignities in Scotland, in 1659 
and went into retirement in Sussex. There he ended 


360 


Graham McCall's Victory. 


his days, and his gentle, like-natured sister, the widow 
Kate McCall, also. But there was to come more stir 
into the mortal life of Ivie, before he entered into his 
eternal rest. 

Ere however we arrive at the events which, after the 
lapse of many years, drew him once more northwards 
from his English home, there is one tragic occurrence 
which the course of our tale demands should be 
narrated. One man’s name has been so perpetually 
interwoven with those of our characters that this 
history would be altogether incomplete without the 
description of the awful end of the life of the traitor 
renegade, James Sharp. 

But let me break the thread of my tale for one 
minute here. Indeed I feel that I must, for I have 
something so strongly on my mind to say, that if I 
did compel my pen to run on past it, my mental eyes 
would be looking back at it all the time, as my bodily 
eyes used to do at ripe blackberries in the hedges, 
when folks made me walk on past them. 

I want to say this to you — If, at any time in your 
lives, and about anything, you change your opinion, 
never be ashamed or afraid to say so. You will be a 
terrible coward if you don’t, and dishonourable. Every 
principle of truth and honour demands the confession 
of you. It is simple rubbish to libel a person as a 
“ turncoat ” on account of his avowal of a change of 
principles or opinions. People should be ashamed 
to be guilty of such foolishness. Why, according to 
their argument, the heathens of old had no right to 


Three Taps at the Door. 


361 


give up bowing down to wood and stone, and to 
embrace Christianity. However clearly they might 
see their old faith to be vain and foolish, and their 
new belief pure and holy, they should not speak out, 
they should keep their altered opinions to themselves. 

You feel almost angry at the idea of any one saying 
such a thing as that to the converts to Christianity, 
do you not ? 

And for my part, I feel quite angry with the 
thought. But then I feel angry with people casting 
blame and injurious words upon others for any change 
of opinion. Such change is no affair of idle choice, 
if it be an honest one, and of course I am concerned 
with no other. It is scarcely optional at all. If a 
body believes his first coat to be worn out and worth- 
less, he naturally is led to change it for another, 
And at all events, he is a change coat, not a turncoat. 
But— 

Yes, there is a “ But.” There are some turncoats. 
Some miserable creatures who have worn their 
opinions, their principles, openly and on the outside, 
so long as it was safe and pleasant to do so, but who 
turn them inside, or rather wear them only inside, 
covering up the outer show, when annoyance and 
trouble on the one hand, and comfort and advantage 
on the other, lead — not to the real inner change 
which ought to be declared if it take place, but to a 
choice of professions by word and act that offer the 
greatest promise of worldly good. 

When you feel tempted to change your opinions, be 


362 


Graham McCall's Victory . 


very, very careful to examine yourself whether it be 
pleasure, ease, fashion, self-interest, ambition, or any 
such earthly matter that is counselling the change, 
or the reasonings of an honest conscience. 

Robert Leighton and James Sharp both gave up 
the Covenant and Presbyterianism, and both became 
bishops under the Episcopalian form of Church 
government. The same deeds on the surface, but 
even in his own day Covenanters forgave Robert 
Leighton the change, and yielded him their love and 
respect, and he has left an honourable name behind 
him, for the admiration of future generations of the 
great family of Christians of all denominations. But 
as for James Sharp, not even the pity extorted by 
his horrible death blinds any eyes even for a moment 
to the despicableness of his character and conduct. 

Only think if the proud ecclesiastic could have 
foretold that even you and I, individuals he would 
have considered quite beneath any other notice from 
him than a sneer or a scowl, would feel a kind of 
irresistible loathing contempt for him ! 

As I said ever so many pages back, surely many 
people’s actions would be very different if only they 
knew in what fashion they, and their doings, would 
be discussed in the future. Still, with all his lack of 
claim upon brotherly sympathy, I do wish for James 
Sharp’s own sake, for his poor daughter’s sake, and 
yet more for the sake of the fair name of the 
Covenanters, that his end had not been such as you 
will learn in our next chapter, 


CHAPTER XXXVI. 


NOT THE MIND OF CHRIST 

HEN we last saw Birsy, the cobbler by trade, 
and the spy by profession, he was shaking 
with fear in a dark cupboard of a room 
in Sandy Frasers house. Various circum- 
stances had drawn suspicion to that abode, but happily 
no search was instituted until Mistress McCall was 
safe in Ireland, and Flemming had done a final good 
turn to the Covenanters, before travelling with Savile 
to England, by giving Sandy himself a timely warning 
to give a wide berth to his own home. 

The only human being the dragoons found, 
throughout the nine stories of the gloomy dwelling, 
was Birsy, and such a grim, savage-looking object he 
was that he narrowly escaped being locked in again, 
as something superhuman, and left to starve to death. 
Fortunately for him, however, he had not become so 
scared out of his wits as to lose all presence of mind 
at this critical moment, and a wild appeal to the 
absent Archbishop induced the soldiers to let the 
wretched little tool of oppression go free. 



364 Graham McCall's Victory. 


The first use he made of his liberty was to denounce 
Elspeth as his kidnapper. But his malice missed its 
aim in that quarter. The old woman found work to 
do amongst her fugitive brethren far from her known 
haunts, and when she was traced at last even her 
enemies stood awed in the presence of the cold, stiff 
body lying in such solemn repose upon the bed of 
death. 

In another quarter Birsy was baffled. Nowhere 
could J ames MacMichael be found. The spy surpassed 
himself in cunning in his efforts to discover the stern 
and moody-natured Covenanter. Parties of dragoons 
repeatedly swept across the country in every direction, 
in vain search for the man whose fierce spirit was said 
to have much to do with keeping up the indomitable 
resolution of his countrymen. 

The cobbler would have comforted himself with the 
belief that his avowed antagonist was dead, had it 
been possible. But by all manner of startling and 
bewildering means the undiscoverable MacMichael 
contrived to deliver terrible warnings to Birsy, to the 
effect that the threatened day of reckoning was not 
forgotten, but only delayed. Under these circum- 
stances it was no use trying to suppose him dead. 
He was all too evidently alive, and Birsy’s own life 
was, in consequence, such a mere long drawn out 
torment of terror that he sometimes felt inclined to 
pray MacMichael to satisfy his vengeance at once by 
ending it. 

Perhaps the Covenanter understood the nature of 


Not the Mind of Christ . 


3 6 5 


the man he had to do with well enough to com- 
prehend all this, and to feel better satisfied, on 
account of his brother’s betrayal, by letting things 
take their present course, than if he had life for life. 
But however that may be, Birsy still lived, and James 
MacMichael still lived, on the last day of April, 1679. 

James Sharp also still lived on that day, but it were 
as well that he should put his house in order, for a 
hundred hours pass quickly, and they were all of time 
now left to him. Perpetual persecutions, and the wild 
hunted life that many of the Covenanters had led for 
many years, had wrought in some of them a spirit of 
fanaticism as dark and gloomy as their fellow-men 
had rendered their existences. They lost sight of the 
Spirit of the Gospel ; they forgot that the fruit of the 
Spirit is : 

“Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, good- 
ness, faith, meekness, temperance.” 

Poor creatures ! — perhaps they supposed that their 
long-suffering had been such an actual fact as to shut 
out all the rest. But I cannot tell you how thankful 
I should be if this sin of the murder of the Archbishop 
did not lie at their door. James Sharp was a blood- 
thirsty and deceitful man, dishonest, unjust, and 
rapacious, and he did not deserve to live out his days. 

But he was in God’s hands/ This little company 
of plotting Covenanters forgot that, in reality, 
although they made a great surface talk about its 
being so. They let go of their hold upon love, and 
let hate fill its place. They let go of peace, and 


366 Graham McCall's Victory. 


feverish restlessness gained possession of them instead. 
And so they lost hold of that perfect faith in God 
which knows, without any shadow of doubt, that God 
can work His own purposes without any shadow of 
man’s wrong-doing to help Him. 

But the Archbishop was not the man at whom 
their especial wrath was directed, at that especial 
springtime of 1679, although it came to pass that he 
was the one to suffer the utmost of its consequences. 

“ A certain William Carmichael, sheriff-substitute, 
or Commissioner from the Council, was the object of 
antipathy. There was a meeting of Fifeshire 
peasants on the 8th of April, to which Hackston of 
Rathillet was summoned, as a person of some rank 
having sympathy with them. 

“After prayer, he said : ‘ Ye have sent for me, and 
I desire to know the cause ? ” 

“Whereupon Robert Henderson and Alexander 
Balfour answered, that the cause of sending for him 
and the calling of the meeting was to consult anent 
the condition of the shire, the Gospel being quite 
extinguished out of it, the hearts of many like to 
wax faint anent the keeping-up of the same, through 
the terror and cruel oppression of William Car- 
michael. And it was resolved to take some course 
with him to scare him from his cruel courses.” 

James MacMichael broke in upon the explanation 
with a voice no whit mellowed yet by age or 
wanderings. “Aye,” he exclaimed harshly — “and 
wherever we find him, tak’ ye heed that the scare we 
gie un be to a good purpose.” 


Not the Mind of Christ . 


3 6 7 


“ But what and if we find him in the palace of 
the Archbishop of St. Andrew’s ? ” asked William 
Blair. “ It is maist likely. For like ither birds o’ a 
feather they aye flock thegither. Where t’ ane is 
t’ ither is nane far off.” 

For a few moments no one spoke. Then several 
voices exclaimed together, led by MacMichael’s : “ In 
that case it will e’en be to tak’ baith, and to hang 
baith over the port — especially the bishop, it being 
by many of the Lord’s people and ministers judged 
a duty long since not to suffer such a person to live, 
who had shed and was shedding so much of the 
blood of the saints.” 

William Blair shook his head at this outburst. 
Using the utmost endeavours to scare men from their 
evil courses was one thing, but slaying them was 
another to which he, at any rate, did not see that the 
way lay clearly marked. One or two of the company 
shared his doubts for a time, and so we are told that 
several more meetings were held, “ for seeking the 
Lord’s mind further in the matter.” 

We may be very sure, however, from the result 
that they unhappily put their own minds first. The 
lives and deeds of Jesus Christ and his Apostles, and 
their immediate successors, were given to us as 
priceless examples in all things for all ages. Never 
mind what it SEEMS to us it must be right should be 
done, or quite reasonable or quite excusable. Just 
look away from your own beliefs and surmises and 
suppositions, and see what Jesus Christ did, and those 


368 Graham McCall's Victory . 


to whom He, the one infallible Teacher, taught His 
lessons personally. 

Jesus Christ did not suffer one of those who came 
out against him to receive so much injury as even 
the loss of his ear. “ Herod the king stretched forth 
his hand to vex certain of the Church : and he killed 
James the brother of John with the sword.” But the 
Apostles did not forthwith stir up the fierce human 
passions of the vexed Church, to wreak human 
vengeance on Herod the king. We hear of no 
secret societies of Christians formed to compass the 
destruction of Nero. We know of no meetings 
called to consult as to the assassination of Diocletian. 

The early Christians used no such means as these 
to further the cause of the Church, or to aid them- 
selves. How they would have stared, had any coun- 
selled measures so diametrically opposed to the law of 
Christ ! They conquered the world, but it was by 
the surpassing eloquence of their love, their holiness, 
their unquenchable faith, and their martyrdom. 

“ This is the victory,” you remember, “ that over- 
cometh the world, even our faith.” 

The early Christians held to faith, hope, and 
charity, and left the guardianship of themselves and 
their cause to God. It is a most dismal thing when 
any body of Christians falls into the extraordinary 
mistake that they can promote their Heavenly 
Father’s honour, or forward the interests of their 
Church, by resorting to either judicial murders or 
secret assassinations. 


Not the Mind of Christ. 


3 6 9 


The angels might easily have wept over this poor 
little handful of devoted, and in many respects noble- 
hearted, Covenanters, when they met together during 
those last days of April, and gradually discussed 
themselves up to the final conclusion that, in order to 
prevent “ the Gospel being quite extinguished out of 
their shire,” one man at any rate should be 
assassinated. In the deliberations Carmichael’s was 
always the name mentioned. 

On Wednesday, the 30th of April, “an arrange- 
ment was made to meet on Friday night, for taking 
some course with Carmichael on Saturday, if he 
could be gotten,” and then one of the party was 
sent away to bring back with him a minister to hold 
a solemn conventicle on the Sabbath following. 



A A 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 

“BECAUSE YE HAVE BETRAYED THE CHURCH, 

AS JUDAS” 

RID AY night, the second of May, and a 
sinister committee was assembled for final 
deliberation. There were thirteen of them 
in the first instance, and one of them, 
William Blair, they let go, on the advice of his friend 
MacMichael, “ not being clear to reveal to him what 
was designed.” 

Blair had learnt too much from his laird, Graham 
McCall, and too much, unconsciously, in the old days 
from the laird’s young son, Ivie, not to see clearly a 
flaw in the reasoning that would make the act now 
in contemplation seem a right one. MacMichael had 
hinted at it to him some hours earlier in the day, and 
demanded fiercely : 

“ What would ye judge to be your duty if there 
were a wild and mad bull running up and down 
Scotland, killing and slaying all that were come in 
his way, man, wife, and bairn? Would you not 



u Ye have betrayed the Church* 371 


think it your duty to kill him, according to that 
Scripture, Exodus xxi. 28, 29 ? ” * 

Blair shook his head, as though to put aside such 
line of argument. “ These men are wild enough, 
verily,” he said, “ and mad too ane body might well 
think. But yet they are not brute beasts, but men, 
and the Apostle hath said by the Spirit : ‘ See that 
none render evil for evil unto any man.’ And again : 
* Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather 
give place unto wrath : for it is written — Vengeance is 
mine ; I will repay, saith the Lord.’ ” 

A dark, heavy scowl came upon the face of the 
gloomy fanatic. He condescended to make no reply 
in his own words. He lifted his Bible, and it fell 
open with a readiness at the required place, that 
was significant of long and frequent brooding 
over the passage which he read out with low, fierce 
tones : 

“And Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before the 
Lord in Gilgal.” 

William Blair’s answer was still less direct, perhaps, 
but it was drawn from the same holy volume: 
“ Insomuch that if it were possible, they shall deceive 
the very elect.” “ My friend,” and he laid his hand 
earnestly on his companion’s arm as he continued : 
“ My brother in the Lord, there be many false Christs 
and false prophets now, rising hour by hour in our 

* The real words, in reference afterwards to the King, spoken 
by one of the chief assassins. Vol. vii. 220, Hill Burton’s 
* History/ 


A A 2 


37 * 


Graham McCall's Victory . 


hearts, and they are more powerful to deceive the 
elect than any that are without.” 

“ Even so,” was the stern, unyielding retort. " An’ 
so tak’ heed to yoursel’, William Blair ; fause prophets 
nourished in your ain heart, those o’ cowardice, and 
fause pity and forbearance towards the servants o’ 
him wha is the enemy o’ the Lord an’ His Christ 
will cast ye fra’ grace into the pit o’ blackness and 
despair.” 

James MacMichael was no hypocrite, seeking to 
hide a thirst for revenge under the cloak of religion. 
At the time he spoke he as thoroughly believed his 
view of the matter to be right as William Blair was 
convinced of the righteousness of his, and accord- 
ingly, lest faintheartedness, or scruples, should inter- 
fere materially with the matter in hand, MacMichael 
privately counselled the remaining eleven members 
of the Committee to dismiss Blair before their plans 
were brought to a distinct and matured head. 

Blair was thankful enough at heart to be thus shut 
out from deliberations he could not approve, but 
human nature is weak, and, as he made his way slowly 
back through the darkness to his wife, he heaved 
many a deep and heavy sigh. His comrades rejection 
of him appeared to be the last drop in the cup of his 
afflictions. 

The home of his fathers lost to him, Master Ivie 
not seen for twelve long years, scarcely heard of for 
a long time past, and now these men with whom his 
special lot was cast closed the inner doors of their 


“ Ye have betrayed the Church .” 373 


hearts against him! Almost he was tempted to 
return, and declare a willingness to go any lengths 
they might desire. 

We who live in these blessed and highly-favoured 
days, have scarcely even the faintest real idea what 
it is to live a life — the whole life remember — as thou- 
sands of these Covenanters did, in one ceaseless 
stream of persecution. In some ways it doubtless 
strengthened them, but it also presented to them 
many fierce temptations that we are not called upon 
to endure. 

The Committee of Decision, as to the treatment of 
Carmichael, being reduced to the number of those 
who were like-minded on the subject, while some 
prayed or rested, one * of the number went to Cupar 
to watch Carmichael’s motions. He returned at 
seven o’clock the next morning, the 4th. He had 
seen the man leave Cupar to go to hunt on Tarvit 
Hill. The twelve hastened forth to hunt him. But 
Carmichael had learnt that suspicious inquiries had 
been made as to his movements, and he gave up his 
hunting for that day. A diligent search was made 
to find him, but in vain. 

They met a boy, and sent him to a little farm hard 
by, to make such innocent-sounding inquiries as might 
give them a clue, and he came back saying that the 
gudewife bade him tell them that the Archbishop’s 
coach was approaching. 

This was astounding news! Judas himself was 

• Burton’s ‘ History of Scotland,’ vol. vii. p. 210, and on. 


374 


Graham McCall's Victory. 


coming in all the guilty state for which he had sold 
the Church of Christ. The paltry subordinate had 
been taken out of their hands, and the arch-traitor 
put in his place. They must slay him. 

They had so wrought upon themselves by this time 
that they fully believed this unexpected event to be 
a sign from God, that He had delivered this enemy 
of theirs up into their hands. They dared not go 
back from the deed. If they did, the blood of all 
the Lord’s people already slain — of all deaths and 
sufferings of the righteous that might follow — would 
be upon their heads. 

And so the band of stern fanatics, with their 
sorrow-darkened minds, stood there, waiting for the 
man to drive up to them whom they meant to kill. 
A wild moor, that Magus Moor, and a wild group. 
And to make the coming scene more tragic and 
dismal in its awfulness — the Archbishop had his 
daughter as his travelling companion ! Hard and 
cruel as the man was he loved his child, and she 
loved him. Those Covenanters might have spared 
the daughter such fearful memories. 

But the carriage is coming on as quickly as the 
lumbering vehicles of that age could be made to move. 
There was a short halt at the village of Ceres, to take 
a social pipe with the parson of the parish. Then on 
again. The country had no scenery or culture to ; 
vary the desolate gloom of the flat Scotch moor. 
Some gloomy thoughts seem to have arisen in the 
Prelate’s mind as he crossed it, and they seem to 


tc Ye have betrayed the Church? 375 


have turned more on his child’s prospects than his 
own. 

As he passed the house of a known enemy he said : 
“There lives an ill-natured man — God preserve us, 
my child.” 

But there was quickly more visible cause for alarm. 
A horseman galloping furiously up to the carriage. 
A set, haggard face looking into it. Then a signal, 
the whole carriage surrounded by solemn resolute 
faces. Twelve men, some on horseback, some on 
foot, and all with firearms, which they discharged into 
the coach. 

They struck down the attendants, stopped the 
horses, and still fired. 

Believing their dire work at length fully accom- 
plished they turned to depart, when, unhappily for 
their miserable victim, an incautious cry of his 
daughter’s brought them back to make the discovery 
that he was not only still alive, but actually untouched ! 
They felt that, to make the case quite clear, the 
Prelate had been long supposed to have a compact 
with the powers of darkness, and his having escaped 
all their shots proved the matter beyond gainsaying. 

“ The Evil One was notoriously known to have 
power of contracting with the lost souls he dealt in 
for exemption from the leaden bullet ; but his power 
did not extend to * the edge of the sword,’ sanctified 
of old as the avenger of wickedness. They would 
kill him with that.” 

“Judas, come forth,” they exclaimed, and they 


376 Graham McCall's Victory. 


enforced the fierce command by dragging him forth 
themselves, hacking at him as they did so. 

His grandeur, his dignity, his haughtiness were 
gone now, fled to the winds. He was face to face 
with death in its most ghastly form, and he pleaded 
frantically for mercy — he would reward them — he 
would plead for them — he would do anything, every- 
thing they desired, if but they would spare his life. 

But he had never shown mercy himself, and he 
received none. Because he had betrayed the Church 
as Judas, because he had wrung his hands these 
eighteen or nineteen years in the blood of the saints, 
he must die. 

“ Because he had been a murderer of many a poor 
soul in the Kirk of Scotland, and a betrayer of the 
Church, and an open enemy and persecutor of Jesus 
Christ and His members, whose blood he had shed 
like water on the ground, he should die.” 

And so he did die, after being hacked at by these 
excited ignorant swordsmen for three-quarters of an 
hour, and with one of the number holding back the 
poor daughter all that awful time in her agonized 
efforts to reach her father, and attempt to save him 
from death. 

James Sharp, Archbishop of St. Andrews, was 
dead — quite dead at last — and then — there was an 
immediate search to find some token of his compact 
with the devil ! 

Such a fact sounds almost incredible to you and 
me, now. But you must recollect that those were 


<e Ye have betrayed the Church 377 


days when a vivid superstition was alive even in the 
midst of the upper classes, while ten of this band of 
assassins were poor, ignorant peasants. And so they 
sought for the sign of black dealings, and in the dead 
man’s tobacco-box they found a living humming-bee. 

“James Sharp’s familiar,” said some; “a visible devil,” 
t said others. And they took their find, and their own 
explanation of it, as Mr. Burton says in this graphic 
account of his, as naturally as a geologist would take 
the finding of a fossil in the stratum where he expected 
it to be, 

“ The familiar, in the shape of a small living being 
easily disposed of was a belief common to the time. 
The creature was an agent or an ambassador from 
the prince of the powers of darkness ever at hand. 
Hence the German legend of the bottle-imp — a 
creature lying lethargic when the world is behaving 
well, but showing animation and activity when any 
mischief likely to promote its master’s interest is 
brewing.” 

But enough of this sadly dark blot upon Cove- 
nanting history. Those who wish for more had better 
turn to Mr. Hill Burton’s own most picturesque 
history. The limits of this tale are well-nigh out- 
stept, and I have still to give you a few concluding 
words as to Ivie McCall, and his friend, Sir Henry 
Savile. 



CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

“ THE CAMERONIANS 

ME fresh troubles for the Covenanters of 
course followed upon the death of Arch- 
bishop Sharp, but it was not until six years 
later, in 1685, during the short reign of 
James II., that the final and fiercest wave of per- 
secution threatened them well-nigh with annihilation. 

“ The black year,” “ the death year,” “ the bloody 
year,” with these terribly significant names Scotch 
Presbyterians marked out that year 1685 ; and the 
report of its miseries, ere it was yet half through, 
reached Ivie McCall far away south, in Sussex. 

McCall was a man of thirty-five now, tall and 
broad, and muscular. As amends for his splendid 
native air, of which he had been deprived, he had had 
the strong fresh breezes of a bold sea-coast, and he 
had thriven in them. From the commencement of 
his sojourn in the new land he had taken to the truest 
missionary work amongst the poor neglected fisher- 
folk along that shore. For miles upon miles stretch- 
ing away on either hand the earnest-eyed young 



“ The Cameronians 


37 9 


Scotchman became known and beloved, and, as has 
been the case in other times of persecution, many a 
soul drawn from darkness into light, found cause to 
bless the Heavenly Father’s mysterious ways of 
working for the diffusion of His Gospel into the 
unthought-of corners of the earth. 

But Ivie had other pupils besides those who were 
poor and ignorant and toil-worn. The work begun in 
the heart of Henry Savile by Graham McCall was 
accomplished by the beautiful example of the son’s 
life, and as years passed on Sir Henry disappeared 
entirely from the wild scenes of gaiety at Court, and 
became as well-known and welcome a visitor in the 
sea- washed huts and cabins as the Scotchman was. 

The small Venice flask went with him always, filled 
with useful cordials made by the sympathizing hands 
of his sister and her daughters, who had likewise 
become of the number of Ivie McCall’s most earnest 
and grateful Christian friends. 

" I do believe, my uncle,” said a fair niece one day 
smiling, as she handed back the refilled flask, “ I do 
believe, uncle, that you love this queer little bottle as 
well as if it were a human being.” 

Sir Henry smiled also, but with a serious gravity, 
as he slipped it within an inner pocket. “ I some- 
times fear that I have almost an undue regard for it, 
Rachel,” he replied gently. “ But the first man who 
ever drank out of it led me, by the grace of the 
Holy Spirit, to drink of the Living Water which 
bestows everlasting life. He lay dying on a conquered 


380 Graham McCall's Victory. 


field. I was a companion in the discredit of the day, 
and in the bitterness of my youthful spirit I twitted 
him with his utter defeat. ‘ But nay/ said he, * the 
Lord reckoned not victory and defeat after man’s way 
of reckoning them.’ He accounted Himself in the 
death for a righteous cause, a conqueror, and I 
myself, perchance, was granted also to Him, for a 
prize.” 

But into the midst of McCall’s peaceful and useful 
life among Englishmen came the news of the heart- 
breaking struggles and sufferings of his Covenanted 
countrymen. All his soul was stirred within him.' 
His mother had yielded up her gentle breath in 
his arms a year ago, he had no other absolute ties 
to keep him from his own people, and so, followed 
by tears and prayers and blessings, he set out, with 
scarcely twenty- four hours’ delay, for his harassed 
and blood-bathed native land. 

Savile was away at the time, but he no sooner 
returned to learn the cause of his friend’s absence 
than he set off after him post-haste, showing as 
much vigour at fifty years of age as he had had at 
thirty. He came up with McCall in time to witness 
a scene of unexpected interest in connection with 
two of the characters of our tale. 

The travellers had reached the brow of a hill, 
following the high road into the heart of the troubled 
districts. And simultaneously they checked their 
horses with a startled cry. 

Late storms had washed away the continuation of 


“ The Conner oniansT 381 

the road immediately before them, and they stood 
upon a brink, looking down into the burn below, now 
swollen into a wild and rushing torrent. And at the 
very instant of their gaining this spot a human figure, 
that of a boy it seemed from the small size, flung up 
its arms wildly, and fell back into the stream. 

It was Birsy, the old cobbler. 

Birsy had tracked James MacMichael at last — as 
he thought. But he had tracked him too closely 
now, in spite of all his anxious pains to avoid doing 
so. He had come, alone and unprotected, face to 
face with him he believed, and the shock was too 
much for his strained and aged nerves. 

One gaze upwards at the giant figure of Sir Henry 
Savile, sitting up there, close above him, on horse 
back, surrounded by friends, one frantic glance round 
to see if there were dragoons at hand to protect him, 
and then with his brain reeling from fear he cast him- 
self headlong upon one death to avoid the dreaded 
prospect of another. But while the informer was 
thus madly making a fatal escape from one he 
wrongly took for his enemy, the real MacMichael 
was close at hand. 

Many and many a time he had been close enough 
to have laid violent hands upon the cobbler had he 
chosen, but the part he had taken in the assassination 
of the Archbishop had more than satisfied his in- 
clinations for such horrible work, and now, as he 
witnessed the fall, from where he lay hidden in 
his damp and muddy lair beneath the bank, he 


Graham Me Call' s Victory . 


382 


dragged himself quickly forth, and plunged in to the 
rescue. 

Leaving their horses in charge of the attendants, 
Ivie and Savile hastened down in their turn, to render 
what assistance they could for both. But as regarded 
Birsy, he was past aid. James MacMichael succeeded 
in bringing the body to the bank, but life was quite 
extinct, and he, himself, died at sunset from injuries 
he had received during his humane efforts. 

Already McCall’s journey to Scotland was become 
of use, as he stayed beside the dying man leading his 
thoughts into gentler channels, his faith into a clearer 
holiness and love, than had belonged to the sad and 
stormy years of his later life. 

For Ivie himself, in spite of openly espousing his 
Cause, he escaped all the dangers of that terrible 
period of Covenanting history, sheltered in great 
measure by the perpetual watchfulness of his friend 
Savile, and the clever cunning of his friend’s old 
English servant, Flemming, who still persisted, rather 
excusably under the trying circumstances, in running 
openly with the English hounds, and siding secretly 
with the Scotch hares. Innumerable were the clever 
and unsuspected rescues he contrived for many a poor 
helpless fellow playing hide-and-seek, now beneath 
the straw in a barn, now in a wool-sack, or a meal- 
tub, from his persecutors. And when at length, in 
1688, the Scotch united with the English in inviting 
William of Orange to come over and accept the British 
Crown, in place of his tyrannical Roman Catholic 


“ The CameroniansT 


3 8 3 


uncle, James II., Flemming was secretly half-sorry 
that he could not turn Scotchman and Covenanter, in 
order to enrol himself in the newly-raised regiment 
of the Cameronians, of which Ivie McCall was one of 
the Captains with William Blair for his aide-de-camp. 

With the raising of this splendid Covenanters’ 
regiment the persecutions of the Covenanters were at 
an end, and of course our tale must consequently 
share the same fate ; and so, I write, and you read, 
two final words : 


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